A view of the deserted Charminar in Hyderabad. File
| Photo Credit: Ramakrishna. G
Hyderabad will cease to be a common capital from Sunday and will become the capital of Telangana alone.
Along with its status as capital of Telangana, infrastructure in the form of several buildings in prime places in the twin cities in possession of Andhra Pradesh since State formation will be taken over by the government. But the neighbouring State has agreed to vacate all the buildings other than those housing the Schedule IX and Schedule X institutions.
0ffices of Film Development Corporation, Civil Supplies Corporation, Dairy Development Cooperative Federation, Vaidya Vidhana Parishad and other offices fall under Schedule IX and X institutions and it is for the State government to take a call on whether they will allow them to be in the possession of the neighbouring State or explore ways to take them over, officials said.
The A.P. government on its part addressed a letter to the Telangana government in January reportedly seeking permission to retain three buildings — Hermitage Complex, CB-CID headquarters and Lake View Guest House — till pending issues between the two States are completely resolved. The issue was referred to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy’s office and was expected to come up for discussion in the recent meeting of the State Cabinet.
Thanks to the restrictions imposed by the Election Commission of India against discussion on pending bifurcation issues, the issue could not be taken up. “The file pertaining to Andhra Pradesh’s request is pending as the Chief Minister is yet to give his consent,” a senior official said.
There are over 55 buildings in prime places of the twin cities that will be vacated soon giving scope for the State government to accommodate offices of some key departments presently functioning from rented premises. This is in addition to the staff quarters located in different parts of Greater Hyderabad that will be taken over by the State government.
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Close to 500 staff quarters and more than 350 quarters pertaining to police and grey hounds are lying vacant for a few years seeking attention of the authorities concerned for their maintenance. “A majority of these quarters have been vacated a long time ago, but the A.P. officials did not hand them over to the State government,” the official said.
The State government is likely to incur huge expenditure in the coming days to take up repairs of these buildings and put them up for use again.
