SUPERSIZED SECRETARIAT

DRIVEN BY CHIEF MINISTER K.CHANDRASHEKAR RAO HIMSELF, WORK ON THE NEW STATE SECRETARIAT IS BEING FINISHED AT A FEVERISH PACE. A MAMMOTH UNDERTAKING, IT'S A FUSION OF THE CM'S VISION OF TRADITION AND MODERNITY

- Amarnath K. Menon

TELANGANA CHIEF MINISTER K.Rao is a man CHANDRASHEKAR in a hurry, hoping to meet a deadline. Top engineers of the state's Road and Buildings (R&B) Department, whom he has tasked to build an imposing new state secretariat by Dussehra (October 5, 2022), are rushed off their feet too. Their work site is the 29.5-acre old Telangana secretariat complex. Ten blocks and 12 other small and big structures of the old complex, with a built-up area of over 900,000 square feet, were razed over a few days in July 2020; 14,000 truckloads of rubble taken away for recycling. From their war room-a 3,000 sq. ft security outpost, which is the last portion standing of the old complex-construction engineers track the 1,800-man team at work. Work began in November 2020, but the Covid pandemic delayed things. Considering the monumental task, a time overrun seems inevitable.

The mammoth, integrated secretariat complex, with state-of-the-art features, is KCR's dream project. Till 2015, he hoped to build it on open land in the Secunderabad Cantonment, owned by the ministry of defence, and recoup the construction cost by selling the secretariat estate to potential developers.