The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, which was deaf all these years to local residents’ repeated pleas to shift the garbage transfer stations out of residential areas, is now having to look in its own backyard. The civic body wanted to construct a 15-storeyed office complex-cum-council hall building in a one-acre plot adjoining its garbage transfer station at Lower Tank Bund. The foundation stone was laid by the then chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy and a private consultant was hired. But the new headquarters remained on paper, with officials realising that the shifting of a garbage station was easier said than done.
Though several new sites were identified, resistance from locals to the prospect of a garbage station in their proximity left the GHMC’s project in limbo. A senior official said that even GHMC commissioner M.T. Krishna Babu’s efforts to procure the prime land of the old Gandhi Medical College, Basheerbagh, were unsuccessful, with the state government yet to respond to his letter.
The proposal for a new office complex came up as GHMC’s existing one is too small, having been constructed to accommodate the officials and elected body of the erstwhile MCH or the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. After the formation of Greater Hyderabad, a new office became a necessity.
The proposed complex was supposed to come up over 4,000 square yards, with two lakh square feet construction area and a green building concept. It was proposed to have 15 floors, with the first three floors for parking and from the fourth to the 13th floors housing offices of the mayor, deputy mayor and their secretariat, along with other GHMC offices. The 14th and 15th floors was proposed to have a council hall.