Durbar shift: government yet to finalise rents for buildings

Officials of R&B and Jawahar Reddy panel likely to meet in Hyderabad on Friday. As per the existing R& B rate, Rs.7 per square feet is paid as rent and it varies for different localities.

A view of Rain Tree Park villas near Acharya Nagarjuna University in Guntur.Photo: V. Raju

The State government is insisting that employees have to shift from Hyderabad to Vijayawada before June next year but authorities concerned are taking their own sweet time in identification of buildings and fixing rents for such buildings.

In addition to Roads and Buildings Department, the government had constituted Jawahar Reddy Committee to look into the aspects pertaining to identification of buildings and durbar shift. The Krishna district authorities identified nearly 85 buildings, of these, the Committee members had short-listed about 35 buildings.

While, several owners have evinced interest in renting out their buildings to the government, the higher authorities are not fixing the rents for commercial and residential buildings. As per the existing R& B rate, Rs.7 per square feet is paid as rent and it varies for different localities, depending on the population in the locality.

“This is eventually delaying things. We are unable to proceed further as building owners want clear assurances on the rent,” said a senior official. A few senior officials and Ministers have moved into different villas at Rain Tree Park opposite Acharya Nagarjuna University and it is learnt that government is paying about Rs.35,000 as rent for each villa.

A meeting of R&B and Jawahar Reddy Committee authorities is likely to be conducted on Friday at Hyderabad to discuss different aspects pertaining to durbar shift.

The government is insisting on shifting the administration from Hyderabad to Vijayawada but employees, though prepared to move here, wanted the government to identify buildings and provide necessary accommodation.

Last month during a meeting with R& B, Housing and other departments, Krishna Collector Babu A, informed that 8.46 lakh square feet space was identified in different buildings and of this, 3.5 lakh square feet was short-listed.

He wanted the officials to complete the identification of buildings for accommodating different departments in a week. The Collector had directed the district officials to identify more buildings in Vijayawada urban, Vijayawada rural, Penumaluru, Gannavaram, Kankipadu, Ibrahimpatnam mandals.