Collector begins identifying buildings at Puttaparthi for headquarters

Not many options, govt. has to take on lease buildings of Sathya Sai colleges

District Collector Nagalakshmi Selvarajan, Joint Collector Ketan Garg and Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust Managing Trustee R.J. Rathnakar inspecting buildings at Puttaparthi on Tuesday. | Photo Credit: R.V.S. PRASAD

The Anantapur district administration has begun the process for identifying buildings in Puttaparthi to locate the government offices temporarily in the proposed new Sri Sathya Sai district, amid growing demand from people and political parties to locate the new district headquarters at Penukonda or Hindupur.

District Collector Nagalakshmi Selvarajan on Tuesday visited Puttaparthi, along with Managing Trustee R.J. Rathnakar, and inspected the buildings of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust to see if they were suitable.

The State government is finding it difficult to convert some of its offices into district offices as the town is not even a municipality and not many government buildings exist. The only option with the government is to temporarily acquire or take on lease some of the buildings of Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust and Centre of Higher Learning (colleges).

Meanwhile, Penukonda Paryataka Porata Committee, a people’s organisation, on Tuesday sent a representation to Governor Biswa Bhusan Harichandan and will meet him in person on Friday at Vijayawada to put forth their reasoning for making Penukonda as the new district headquarters and renaming it as Sri Krishnadevaraya district in view of the historical importance of the town being the second capital of Vijayanagara Kings for 200 years.

Penukonda has 640 acres of government land available and large buildings of Revenue Division of all departments, which can be readily converted into district-level offices and the staff can immediately occupy them from day one just by changing name boards, said committee members. 

“The Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust help will be essential for locating the new district headquarters as the temporary accommodation for different departments had to be provided in their buildings,” the Collector said.

District heads of all departments have been asked to identify what surplus resources they had to part with the new establishment of their department at Puttaparthi. They have been asked to give seat-wise manpower details and the furniture and computers they use.s