The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), functioning out of the main block of Fort St. George in Chennai, will soon move to the 10th floor of Namakkal Kavignar Maaligai, amid reports in sections of the media that the State government is considering shifting the Secretariat from the Fort, Chennai’s prominent vestige of the colonial era, to another location.
At present, the 10th floor of Namakkal Kavignar Maaligai (also located in the premises of Fort St. George), is used for conferences, including those chaired by the Chief Minister with District Collectors and Superintendents of Police. Space constraints are cited as the primary reason for the shift. An official said that even after the CMO is relocated to the 10th floor, Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay may occasionally use the existing Chief Minister’s chamber in the main block.
There have been reports that the site of the mofussil bus terminus in Koyambedu, now lying unutilised after the terminus was shifted to Kilambakkam, is being considered for housing the Secretariat. However, there is a view within the government that as Koyambedu is already congested, relocating the Secretariat there would only worsen the situation.
The Highways Research Station (HRS) campus, opposite Lok Bhavan in Guindy, is another site that has been occupying the attention of the government, including a couple of Ministers. Twenty-two years ago, when Jayalalithaa was Chief Minister, offices and educational institutions situated on the Anna University campus in Guindy, as well as nearby campuses such as the Madras School of Economics (MSE) and the HRS, were asked to shift elsewhere so that work on the new Secretariat complex at Kotturpuram could commence. The Research Station was even partially shifted to another site in Guindy. Eventually, the government abandoned the Kotturpuram project, enabling the HRS to return to its original site.
“As of now, it [the new venue for the Secretariat] is all in the realm of ideas,” observed an official.