Hyderabad, June 25: The reception centre at the main entrance of the Andhra Pradesh secretariat looks deserted. The police guards make cursory checks of the handful of vehicles entering the complex.

Inside the compound, work has come to a standstill for a second time in two years.

In 2014, the reason was the bifurcation of the state into Telangana and residuary Andhra Pradesh. Now, the reason is that the 1,769 secretariat employees are reluctantly preparing to shift to Amaravati, Andhra's designated new capital 285km away in coastal Guntur district, starting Monday.

Under the Andhra Pradesh State Reorganisation Act, the Andhra government can operate from the common capital of Hyderabad till 2024, sharing with Telangana the assets of the undivided state, such as the secretariat and Assembly buildings.

But eight years before that deadline, the Nara Chandrababu Naidu government has begun the relocation to Amaravati, about 12km from Vijayawada and 35km from Guntur city, where the state pooled about 33,000 acres of fertile farmland last year.

From June 27, the 20,799 employees of the Andhra government's secretariat offices and 89 departments spread across Hyderabad would move out in phases, taking with them hundreds of tonnes of files and furniture. The process could take three to six months and is estimated to cost anywhere between Rs 15 crore and Rs 50 crore.

"It's barely two years since the erstwhile secretariat buildings were divided between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It took us over two months to relocate and settle within the same premises," Subba Rao, an assistant section officer, grumbles during a tea break at the secretariat canteen.

"Now, the government has ordered us to move about 300km away and into a building that is still under construction," he adds as his colleagues nod in common disapproval of their chief minister's decision.

The employees had not expected the relocation to start so soon, aware that even the first phase of the capital at Amaravati, as envisioned by the state in partnership with Singapore, would take three to four years to complete.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the foundation for the project last year on October 22, Vijaya Dashami, and work has not begun yet.

But Naidu was so keen on an immediate shift that he began the construction of an interim secretariat complex at Velagapudi, adjacent to Amaravati, in February with an estimated budget of Rs 180 crore.

Many are baffled at Naidu's hurry to shift base to the Vijayawada-Guntur circle, renouncing the well-designed office space here.

Till June last year, the chief minister had been saying he would continue to live and rule from Hyderabad, a city he fondly claims to have rebuilt into a world-class IT hub, till 2024.

"Naidu had shot down a proposal to move the government in phases to Amaravati saying there was no hurry. He had hinted that he needed to protect his Telugu Desam Party's political interests here (in Hyderabad and Telangana)," said a senior IAS officer, one among the half-dozen tasked to oversee the relocation.

It took Naidu just a few weeks to change his mind. In July last year, he stopped operating from the secretariat and has since then been spending most of his time either in a rented guesthouse near Vijayawada or in touring the districts. His ministers have followed suit.

Political opponents and disgruntled employees allege a link between Naidu's pirouette and the cash-for-votes controversy that hit last June's legislative council elections in Telangana. A voice tape produced by Telangana police's anti-corruption bureau was used to allege Naidu's involvement in the scandal.

The buzz in Hyderabad is that Naidu's arch-enemy and Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao has been hounding him with the case, and that Naidu has had to relinquish Hyderabad as part of a truce mediated by a senior Union minister from Andhra.

"Whatever the truth, it's clear that Naidu feels insecure operating from Hyderabad under the Rao government's surveillance," an IAS officer said.

Andhra police had claimed last year that the phones of several Andhra ministers and politicians had been tapped in Telangana.

Besides, Naidu seems to have lost interest in Telangana politics after his party's base shrivelled in that state, with most of his MLAs there defecting to Rao's Telangana Rashtra Samithi.

However, the reason Naidu has cited for the immediate shift is that "a government cannot operate sitting far away from its people".

He expects the shift not just to streamline administration - now tangled between the ministers in Vijayawada and the officials in Hyderabad - but also to generate revenue through realty growth, property registration, increased travel and additional taxable spending.

Questions, however, have been raised about a "cash-strapped" Andhra spending Rs 180 crore on the interim secretariat after having forked out Rs 60 crore post-bifurcation to spruce up its Hyderabad buildings, such as the Lake View Guest House and two blocks at the secretariat, for the chief minister's use.

While the secretariat and ministers' offices would shift to the Velagapudi complex - now in the final stages of construction - all the 89 departments will work from available government buildings or rented private office spaces in Guntur and Vijayawada.

The rents for these buildings would cost a bomb, although the state government has fixed the ceiling at Rs 30 per square foot a month. Several of the departments are yet to find suitable office spaces within that budget.

The employees, though, are more concerned with the rigours of house-hunting in Vijayawada and Guntur and the rent they would have to shell out to landlords or guesthouses. The imminent shift of over 20,000 employees has doubled house rents in the area.

With no clarity on when their specific departments would be moving, a few employees have ended up retaining their rented homes in Hyderabad while paying the advances in Vijayawada.

Till the capital complex in Amaravati comes up, most of the employees would in any case be keeping their families in Hyderabad, which has superior infrastructure and education facilities and a pleasanter climate than super-sultry Vijayawada.

Naidu's offer of a higher house rent allowance and a five-day working week - to allow the employees to visit their families back in Hyderabad - has failed to lift spirits.

With even the Velagapudi complex still incomplete thanks to the rain hobbling construction, not more than 20 of the 89 departments are expected to start operating at their new location from Monday.

"At least one block of the interim secretariat is expected to be completed by June 27," Parakala Prabhakar, adviser to the government, has said.

How well are the offices in Velagapudi expected to work under these circumstances?

"Government offices are where the public come with their grievances - but for now, I'm afraid, it will be the employees listing their woes before the public," an IAS officer rued.

An employee, who described himself as "distraught at this prospect of relocation", still saw an irony in his situation.

"Angry at the bifurcation, we had declared our willingness to work even from under trees in Andhra," he said. "It now seems we'll be doing something close to that after we relocate."