Even as the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (S) claim credit for building the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha – venue of the legislature session currently being hosted in this border city - Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday observed that it was not planned well enough to accommodate the various government departments.
Replying during question hour in the Legislative Assembly to Congress member J. T. Patil, the Chief Minister observed that the building was badly planned, making it difficult to shift government offices from other areas to there. Earlier Mr. Patil sought that some of the government offices be shifted to the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha.
Mr. Siddaramaiah said, “If you shift the offices of important government departments to the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha, then the legislature wing will fall short of space when the legislature session is held here every year. This is the crux of the problem in shifting the government offices to this building,” Mr. Siddaramaiah said.
Also, the rooms in the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha were too small to accommodate big offices which get a large number of visitors every day, he said.
However, the Chief Minister agreed to a suggestion of Opposition members that the government should consider building another complex near the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha for government offices; the new complex could be on the lines of the multi-storeyed building in Bengaluru.
At present, the government holds the legislature session, meetings of the Cabinet, Cabinet sub-committees, legislature committees and review of various departments in the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha. While seven such meetings were held in 2012, the numbers touched 42 in 2013 and 31 so far in 2014, he said.
