Denying Opposition charge that her government was deliberately ignoring the new Assembly complex at Omandurar estate as it was built by the DMK, chief minister J. Jayalalithaa said the new complex was “incomplete and inadequate” to accommodate all government departments.
“Duraimurugan (former DMK minister) is trying to give an impression to the House that my government is deliberately ignoring the new complex. The DMK did not build secretariat for all the 36 government departments. Everything they did was incomplete and inadequate,” Ms Jayalalithaa said intervening during Mr Duraimurugan’s speech on the budget on Wednesday.
She had only stated there were space constraint in the secretariat and not in the Assembly complex. Only six government departments were made to function in the new secretariat at Omandurar whereas the remaining 30 governments continued to function from the secretariat at Fort St. George.
She said while the DMK ministers functioned from the new secretariat, their secretaries and other officers functioned from the secretariat at Fort St. George. “Officials of most departments had to run between the two buildings and this caused delay and confusion,” she said and added that it was improper to say that the project was being ignored as it was a DMK initiative.
However, she maintained, she prefered to work from the historic Fort St George where all the government departments functioned.