File Photo: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao
Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has openly declared that he plans to build a new secretariat at a cost of Rs. 150 crore because the "vaasthu of the old secretariat is bad''.
After an 8-hour-long marathon cabinet meeting late on Friday evening, the Chief Minister announced that Rs. 150 crore had been sanctioned for the new building, which will replace the Government Chest Hospital in Sanath Nagar area of the city.
"We wanted all the heads of department and all related government offices in one location for administrative convenience and coordiantion,'' the Chief Minister said.
"Also, the present secretariat has bad 'vaastu dosham'. it is a fact. History is proof of that. No one has prospered because of that. I don't want that to happen to Telangana and its people,'' he said.
The hospital has to be shifted as well, said the Chief Minister. "The Nizam had built it for his daughter. When TB spread, he shifted his daughter out and established the hospital in what was then a clean and green place. Now, it is not suitable for patients,'' said Mr Rao.
The hospital will shift to the TB sanatorium at Vikarabad, which is miles away. There have been protests by the hospital staff who don't want to travel several kilometres away to work, they say patients will also be inconvenienced. The Chief Minister, however, is not convinced by their arguments.
The present structure of the hospital is to be demolished and a new building is scheduled to come up within one year.
When a journalist asked KCR whether the hospital was a heritage structure, the Chief Minister said, "The label of heritage structure is meaningless. It is not true that we cannot touch any heritage structure. That way land is our biggest heritage. Should we not touch it? Should we wear just leaves and not build homes? There is a way to do it; change the law, amend it to do it".