In Telangana, the Bahubali main gate (main entrance) at the Secretariat has been removed to the surprise of the locals. On Sunday (17th November), the main entrance passage to the Secretariat was closed off with blue tin sheets due to Chief Minister Revenath Reddy’s concerns about the Vaastu. As per a News18 report, the Telangana Congress government is splurging a whopping Rs 3.5 crore on building a new gate for the Telangana secretariat which will be built as per Vaastu stipulations.
As per the official documents, the estimated cost of constructing the Vaastu-compliant gates at the state Secretariat in Telangana will be Rs.3.50 Crore. The stages of the construction work include laying of new internal road 48 wide from North East gate no 4 to South East gate no 2 on the east side including the construction of side drains and a Footpath, providing an additional Gate on the east side compound wall, providing External Electrification along the new road and providing External Electrification along new road. Meanwhile, as the present stage of work mentioned in the document, road excavation work is in progress.
This comes at a time when the Congress government in Telangana is yet to implement many of its schemes guaranteed by the party during state elections. It should be noted that in September of last year, the Congress party promised the people of Telangana six promises if elected to power in the state within 100 days. The party promised that all Telangana activists would receive a 250-yard house site, a housing program worth 5 lakh rupees, a monthly old-age pension of 4,000 rupees, and up to 10 lakh rupees in health insurance. While Congress has yet to deliver on its much-hyped six promises, and Telangana’s financial situation is not believed to be very good, CM Reddy is spending public money to build Vaastu-compliant gates.
Criticising the Telangana government for allegedly squandering taxpayers’ money on misplaced priorities, BJP leader NV Subhash said that while the state’s economy is in shambles, the exchequer is dried up and hardly any money is left to pay the salaries of government employees, CM Revanth Reddy along with his cabinet ministers is spending huge amounts of money on the interiors of their offices and houses. “This shows that they [Telangana Congress] are not committed and they just wanted the luxury and are leaving the people in doldrums…” the BJP leader told News18.
Meanwhile, the Congress spokesperson Shujath Ali attributed the secretariat entrance revamp and separate entrance passage construction for CM Reddy to increased public footfall rather than the Vaastu stipulations.
Former CM KCR’s fixation with the ‘Vaastu’ of Telangana Secretariat
While the Telangana Congress and Chief Minister Revanth Reddy are receiving flak over their alleged obsession with the Vaastu of the secretariat, former CM KCR also had a similar fixation. As OpIndia reported earlier, in a press conference in the year 2015, KCR announced that the existing secretariat building has very “bad vaastu”, and that’s why no CM ever had a good time there.
He was referring to the history of incomplete CM terms in the state. He was alluding to this history while commenting that the existing secretariat building is basically not safe for him to work in (though he actually claimed that this was not good for Telangana)!
In 2015, the BRS Chief claimed that the construction cost for the new secretariat will be about Rs 150 crore and he will demolish the Chest Hospital building in the city. There was widespread outrage by people at this decision to demolish the heritage chest hospital building. This outrage forced KCR to back off from the proposed new building here.
After some time, KCR put the onus on the central government to give the Bison Polo grounds – grounds that belong to the Ministry of Defence. The Prime Minister had given in-principle approval for the same in the year 2017. However, there was again outrage from the citizens; and also, the nitty-gritty between the state and the central government on the actual terms of transfer of this land was taking too long (even though the High Court approved the construction on Bison Polo Grounds).
At this point in time (2018), KCR claimed that the construction cost for the new Secretariat will be 250 crores. This, blatant wastage of public money was widely criticised by the people of Telangana, and their resentment over the same reflected in the state elections as they ousted BRS from power. However, now its successor Congress is also allegedly heading the same way.
