AP govt releases Rs 19.73 Cr for construction of Millennium

: The Andhra Pradesh government on Monday released Rs 19.73 crore for construction of Millennium Tower-B at Madhurawada on the outskirts of Visakhapatnam as speculation is rife that the state Secretariat is expected to be moved there soon.

Millennium Tower-A has already been built and some Information Technology companies have started functioning from there.

But, with the government deciding to make Visakhapatnam the 'executive capital' of the state, private IT firms were made to vacate the premises, so the Secretariat departments could be moved in.

For the past few years, construction of Millennium Tower-B did not move forward, mainly because of poor response from IT firms.

However, now that the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government is firm on relocating the state Secretariat and offices of various heads of departments to Visakhapatnam, the Information Technology, Electronics and Communications Department issued an order releasing Rs 19.73 crore for the construction of Millennium Tower-B.

In fact, a sum of Rs 65.12 crore is required to complete the balance works on Tower-A and construction of Tower-B.

The Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation will execute the project.

Interestingly, the GO only referred to the IT Policy, under which "it is the mandate of government to provide infrastructure facilities such as road, power, water and sewerage to the door step of the EMC/IT/ITES Layouts/ Parks/SEZs/Campus of IT Industry", implying that the tower is meant for IT industry.

In reality, however, the government has zeroed-in on this location for the Secretariat and hence funds have been swiftly released to build the long-pending Tower-B, official sources said.