The Chandrababu Naidu government in Andhra Pradesh is learnt to have taken a decision to take on lease luxury villas and flats from private builders in Vijayawada to provide accommodation for ministers and senior IAS officers.
According to sources, the Naidu government is making temporary arrangements for housing the ministers and IAS officers, instead of paying them hotel charges, whenever they come to Vijayawada for official meetings.
Naidu wants that they should operate from Vijayawada, till the capital of Amaravati is built in the next two years.
In the first phase, the Naidu government is likely to take 245 flats in the apartments and 26 villas.
The Roads and Buildings Department has fixed the price at Rs 7 per square feet. However, the government offered to pay Rs 11 per sft, an extra amount of Rs 4 per sft.
The government entered agreements with the builders for a period of two years and asked them to surrender all the houses by October 1.
There will be a rental hike of 5 per cent per annum. It may be mentioned here that the Government was paying Rs 50,000 towards rentals per year in Hyderabad.
