Chennai: The state government has earmarked 21.76 acres of land in Foreshore Estate, also known as Pattinapakkam, for the construction of a new State Secretariat and Assembly complex at a cost of Rs 1,200 crore, announced by Chief Minister Joseph Vijay in the Assembly on September 3.
The government order stated that two plots of land belonging to the Tamil Nadu Housing Estate have been allocated in Foreshore Estate for the Secretariat complex, which will have all modern amenities.
Once the new premises are completed, the Fort St. George building, where the Secretariat currently functions, will be preserved as a historical structure for the benefit of future generations, Vijay said.
In the past, many chief ministers made several attempts to move the Secretariat and Assembly from the historic Fort St. George, the first English fort in India, built by the East India Company between 1639 and 1644.
The first attempt to move out of the historic building was made by MGR in 1983, citing lack of space in the Fort St. George premises, but this did not happen. Twenty years later, J. Jayalalithaa wanted to change the center of power and in 2003 establish a single administrative city near Mahabalipuram.
Subsequently, Jayalalithaa’s attempts to convert the seaside Queen Mary College into a new Secretariat failed due to public opposition, and her next plan to build it at Kotturpuram on the land where the Anne Centenary Library is now located also failed as she did not win the 2006 Assembly elections.
In fact, the bhoomi puja was held in Kotturpuram in 2003 when ministers of the then Jayalalithaa cabinet attended the event in full force. But due to some administrative hiccups, this idea was abandoned.
Late DMK leader M Karunanidhi then laid the foundation stone and built a new Secretariat building on the Omandurar government estate in 2010, but when Jayalalithaa returned to power in 2011, she converted the new building into a multi-specialty hospital and medical college.
Now, the TBC government is making an attempt to build a new Secretariat at a cost of Rs 1,200 crore, although it is shifting the chief minister’s office and some key departments to the tenth floor of the Namakkal Kavinnar building in the premises, thereby moving out of the historic Fort St George building.