Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay is likely to announce plans to move the state Legislative Assembly and Secretariat out of the historic Fort St George, potentially triggering one of the biggest changes to the state’s administrative infrastructure in years.
The announcement is expected during the ongoing Assembly session, with government sources indicating that the administration is examining multiple locations for an integrated Assembly-Secretariat complex.
Reports differ on the sites under consideration. Government sources cited by ANI have named Pattinapakkam, Nandambakkam, Koyambedu and the Highways Department premises in Guindy.
Another report said the government has shortlisted the Highways Research Station campus in Guindy, Foreshore Estate and a site opposite Fintech City at Nandambakkam. No final decision has been taken on the location.
The immediate challenge facing the government is space. Fort St George, a 17th-century complex, has struggled to accommodate an expanding government establishment, employees, visitors, vehicles and security arrangements.
The space crunch has reportedly become so acute that some ministers are being accommodated in the garage block. Daily footfall at the Secretariat is also said to have increased from around 7,000 to nearly 9,000 since Vijay took office, putting additional pressure on parking, public toilets, drinking water and visitor facilities.
Another constraint is the heritage status of the complex. The main Fort St George building is under the jurisdiction of the Archaeological Survey of India, limiting the government’s ability to undertake major structural alterations or expand the premises to meet modern administrative requirements.
The government’s efforts to create additional space for the Chief Minister’s Office have highlighted the limitations further.
The CMO is proposed to shift to the 10th floor of Namakkal Kavignar Maligai, within the existing Secretariat campus. The government has earmarked Rs 11 crore for the work, which is expected to include offices for the Chief Minister and his secretaries, meeting rooms and waiting areas.
However, the internal relocation would not address the broader shortage of space across the Secretariat.
A new integrated complex would allow the government to plan the Assembly, ministerial offices, departments, parking, security zones and public-access facilities together rather than continuing to modify or repurpose buildings within the constrained Fort St George campus.
The cost of such a project remains unclear because the government has not announced an official estimate.
The Rs 11 crore allocated for the new CMO at Namakkal Kavignar Maligai should not be confused with the cost of constructing an entirely new Assembly-Secretariat complex. The eventual expenditure would depend on the site selected, built-up area, Assembly requirements, security infrastructure, parking and whether additional land needs to be acquired.
Government ownership of some of the proposed sites could reduce land-acquisition costs. The Guindy parcel under consideration is around 35 acres, while two other reported locations have more than 20 acres each and are also government-owned.
Tamil Nadu’s previous experience with relocating the Secretariat shows why the issue could become politically sensitive.
The Assembly and Secretariat complex constructed at Omandurar Government Estate during M Karunanidhi’s tenure was initially estimated to cost around Rs 450 crore. The expenditure subsequently rose to about Rs 1,100 crore, according to records cited in later litigation.
The proposal to move out of Fort St George is therefore not simply an infrastructure decision. The historic complex has been closely associated with Tamil Nadu’s post-Independence administration and legislature, apart from a brief period when the Assembly functioned from the Omandurar complex.
Jayalalithaa had attempted to establish a new Secretariat in the early 2000s, but those proposals were eventually abandoned.
Karunanidhi later constructed the Omandurar complex and shifted the Assembly there in 2010. After returning to power in 2011, Jayalalithaa moved the government back to Fort St George and converted the Omandurar complex into a multi-super-speciality hospital.
For Vijay’s government, the key challenge will therefore be to establish that a new Assembly-Secretariat complex is driven by a long-term administrative requirement rather than being another government infrastructure project that could be reversed by a future administration.
The proposed project could also attract scrutiny over its financial implications, particularly as Vijay has repeatedly highlighted Tamil Nadu’s debt burden since taking office.
The government will ultimately have to justify the expenditure against the potential gains in administrative efficiency, accessibility, security, parking, space utilisation and long-term infrastructure planning.
