AP to shift Secretariat from Hyderabad to Vijayawada

Andhra Pradesh’s association with Hyderabad as its capital for the last 60 years is beginning to end.

The government is all set to shift the epicentre of power, the state Secretariat, to Vijayawada from Hyderabad in the next six to eight months and spell out modalities after the ground-breaking ceremony for Amaravati on October 22.

It has firmed up a proposal to relocate the Secretariat to an IT Special Economic Zone, Medha Towers in Vijayawada. Confirming the development, a senior official told BusinessLine that the decision has also been communicated to the Centre seeking denotification of SEZ status to the towers. Inaugurated in 2010, the state-of-the-art facility located close to the airport at Gannavaram has over 2 lakh sqft office space and most of it remains unoccupied. The work on constructing a temporary Assembly building is also on near Tullur where the new capital is coming up.

In the last three months, there has been significant increase of activity in the small town of Vijayawada with Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu preferring to attend to his duties in his camp office there. In fact, he rarely visited his camp office in Hyderabad and the Secretariat in the recent past.

Heads of many key departments such as industries are spending at least four days a week in Vijayawada on an average and the transport department is in the process of relocation itself. The Publicity Department has also set up a separate wing.

There has been sheer increase in the number of visitors to the city as reflected in the higher hotel occupancy. “In the last three months alone, the number of visitors to Vijayawada has gone up by about 20 per cent,’’ says K Pattabhiram, Advisor and past-president of Vijayawada Hotel Owners’ Association.

The profiles of visitors are also interesting: “Most of the visitors are staying in hotels as business persons and investors, including foreigners,’’ he adds.

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