HYDERABAD: A district collector in Telangana lives in a haunted house and she is scared of sleeping in the first floor of the 133-year-old building. Warangal urban district collector Amrapali Kata has said that she avoids sleeping on the first floor as she had also been advised by her predecessors against it. In fact, her predecessors who called her up to congratulate on taking over as collector in 2016 had themselves told her about the ghost in the house.

“I went to the first floor and saw that there was some old furniture and some trash. I got it cleaned but I do not sleep there,” Amrapali told the media. She said she had also done some research about the building and found that the foundation stone for the house had been laid by the wife of one George Palmer who was an engineer during the Nizam’s time. “I was curious about it and searched the archives and also found it there,” the 36-year-old collector said.

Amrapali Kata also revealed that the collector’s residence, since it was old was also leaking. “We have to keep vessels at the places where the roof leaks to collect the rain water,” she said. On August 10, a foundation stone was laid for an integrated collectorate building in Warangal. That is the place where the collector’s office is. The new building will come up on this office premises. However, the collector’s residence will continue to be the official house.

The collector said the old building was being repaired from time to time and there were some small issues like that. “The ghost being here is one more layer. I am very happy for that also,” she said. Amrapali Kata said despite the ghost in the house she was excited to be living there. “There is a lawn and animals,” she said to describe them as compensation enough for the presence of a ghost.

The 2010 batch IAS officer was born in Visakhapatnam and is a civil engineering graduate from IIT Madras. She also did her PG diploma in management from IIM Bangalore. She stood 39th in the UPSC examinations .

Amrapali Kata is married to IPS officer Sameer Sharma in Jammu earlier this year. He is posted in Daman and Diu.

