Hyderabad: The TS government wants to shift the venue of the 105th Indian Science Congress from Osmania University to HICC. The reason for the shift is the volatile situation at the OU campus following the suicide of a post-graduate student recently. TS does not want any untoward incident to mar the five-day event and bring disrepute to Brand Hyderabad. If the event is held in OU, accommodation and transportation of the delegates will be problematic. As there are no big hotels near OU, delegates will have to travel several kilometres daily from Gachibowli, Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, etc to the campus in Vidyanagar.
Security is also an issue and so it may be better to shift the venue to HICC, which hosted the Global Entrepreneurship Summit successfully. Roads, pavements, flyovers from Shamshabad airport to HICC are in good shape as they were extensively refurbished for the GES. The same cannot be said for the OU venue which is located between the heavily congested Tarnaka and Vidyanagar, with narrow roads or damaged roads.
The OU buildings and hostels are in bad shape even though OU is celebrating its centenary this year. TS had assured Rs 200 crore for the celebrations, but released only Rs 50 crore has been released so far. Officials of the TS Council of Higher Education are expected to meet Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao this week and he will take the final call on whether the venue should be shifted to HICC, sources said.
