Engineering colleges to accommodate AP govt offices

HYDERABAD: Many engineering colleges in and around Vijayawada-Guntur, which are lying vacant following zero admissions, are likely to be used by the Andhra Pradesh government to shift some of the government offices from Hyderabad to Vijayawada in a phased manner.

In order to overcome space constraints in Vijayawada and Guntur, in between which the new capital is being proposed, AP government is planning to hire the vacant buildings of private engineering colleges, located in Vijayawada and Guntur to accommodate government offices.

The three-member official committee, set up to make recommendations to the AP government on the office space needed in the new capital and timeframe required to relocate HoDs, is learnt to have suggested to the state government to this effect.

According to sources, following chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu's nod, the panel asked higher officials of the education department and collectors of Krishna and Guntur districts to identify those colleges, which are lying vacant, and ask the managements to let out their buildings to the government.

The panel, consisting of roads and buildings transport principal secretary B Sam Bob, finance principal secretary Ajeya Kallam, and municipal administration principal secretary D Sambasiva Rao, on Monday had a detailed meeting with the secretaries and HoDs of agriculture, education, social welfare and municipal administration departments.

According to sources, during the interaction, the panel members, who toured Vijayawada and Guntur extensively recently to identify spacious government buildings as well as find required office space for shifting some of the HoDs, indicated that the government wants to shift the HoDs of agriculture department along with the offices of college education, school education and Intermediate education to Vijayawada in the first phase. Panchayat raj, welfare, rural development and municipal administration HoDs will be relocated later.

The committee is learnt to have told the secretaries of education and social welfare departments that it wants to locate the offices of these two departments in the sprawling-Nagarjuna University campus.

At the same time, various offices of municipal administration department would be located in the office buildings of the Vijayawada Guntur Tenali and Mangalagiri Urban Development Authority (VGTM-UDA).