Ahead of Inauguration, Fire Breaks Out in New Secretariat Building in Hyderabad

Ahead of its inauguration on February 17, a fire broke out in the newly-constructed Telangana Secretariat building here in the early hours of Friday, officials said.

No one was injured in the incident, they added.

The newly-built ‘Dr B R Ambedkar Telangana State Secretariat Building’ is scheduled to be inaugurated on February 17, the birthday of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao. He will inaugurate the new Secretariat.

The blaze was reported from the ground floor of the building around 2.30 am and over 10 fire engines were deployed to bring it under control, officials said.

Visuals on social media showed black smoke emanating from the premises. The exact cause of the blaze was being ascertained, officials added.

Terming the incident unfortunate, Telangana BJP president and party MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar alleged the fire broke out due to poor quality of work.

In a release, the BJP leader demanded that the decision to inaugurate the new Secretariat on Rao’s birthday be postponed adding it should be inaugurated on the birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar.

“All kinds of works including fire safety should be checked and measures should be taken to avoid any accidents,” he said.

Telangana Congress president and MP A Revanth Reddy said “covering up” the incident of fire breaking out in the new Secretariat building in the name of a mock drill is wrong.

“It seems that the safety standards are not being followed due to the pressure to inaugurate the building on Chief Minister’s birthday on February 17,” Reddy alleged.

The TPCC chief demanded that an all-party delegation should be allowed to visit the spot to ascertain the truth about the fire.

Meanwhile, several Congress leaders and members of the party raised slogans against Rao when they were “stopped” by police at Gandhi Bhavan as they attempted to reach the new Secretariat building.

The Congress leaders had planned to visit the new Secretariat building complex to ascertain the facts over the incident, the party said in a release.

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