Vijayawada: Taking a dig at former chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for constructing palatial buildings on top of Rushikonda hillock in Visakhapatnam, minister for ITE&C and HRD Nara Lokesh called him ‘Saddam Hussein of Andhra Pradesh‘.
He said Jagan Mohan Reddy wasted public money to the tune of 500 crore for construction, and that 200 crore penalty was imposed by the Ministry of Environment and Forest for the environmental damage caused by them.
Mocking the buildings as ‘Andhra’s Sheesh Mahal’, the minister said that it was originally the tourism department’s project. “The villas on top of the hill were constructed for tourists to enjoy the view. However, the former chief minister, who thought he would be the chief minister for 30 years, built a big house in place of the villas. He built three houses — one for himself, one for his daughters, and another for his wife. He also built a very big office building and another for his security personnel, who were 1,000 in number at any given point of time when he was the CM,” Lokesh said.
He spent public money for himself in the guise of a tourism project, but now the tourism department cannot find any takers for the houses. It has become a ‘white elephant’ for the govt and they do not know what to do with those big houses. “A huge amount of public money was spent just for four people. I am sure even the Prime Minister’s house is not that big,” said Lokesh.
The state govt is looking into various options to utilise the Rushikonda buildings, said Lokesh. So far, nobody is coming forward to take it. But we will see what we can do with those buildings because it is the property of the state, he said.
During the YSRCP regime, the existing tourism cottages were razed down, and new buildings were constructed as a tourism project. However, the then state govt proposed to convert those buildings into the CM’s residence after Visakhapatnam was made the executive capital as part of YSRCP’s policy of three capitals.
Multiple Public Interest Litigations (PIL) were filed before the high court challenging the move, and the committee constituted by the high court confirmed irregularities and environmental violations in the construction of buildings going beyond the approved area in an ecologically sensitive zone.
