Central Vista Project and construction of the new parliament building.
Our current parliament building located in New Delhi, 750meters away from Rashratrapati Bhavan was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker (the British Architects) in 1912-1913 .The foundation stone was laid in the month of February in the year 1921 and It took six years for the British Colonial Rulers to construct the parliament building which costed around 83 lakhs during that period.
On December 10th 2020 Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the construction of a new parliament building on the Central Vista. The grand ground breaking ceremony was performed in the presence of Union Ministers, State Ministers, Mps, foreign envoys and other leaders. Even Ratan Tata was present in the ceremony as Tata groups are part of the construction project.
The Central Vista is a redevelopment project in which construction of a new parliament building is a part. According to the reports the cost of this project was 20,000 crore but many sources state that the estimated cost to construct the new parliament building would be 971 crores. A release by the prime Minister’s Office states that the construction of new parliament is a major part of the vision of self-reliant India and will provide an opportunity to build people’s parliament in order to meet the needs of new and modern India.
The new parliament building will be a triangular four-storied building spreading over an area of 64,500sq meters which will be located in a close range to RashtraPati Bhavan. As the lotus, the peacock, the banyan tree are the three national symbols therefore, the interiors will have these national symbols as its themes. The theme of Lok Sabha chamber will be peacock (national bird) , for Rajya Sabha its lotus (national flower), for central lounge its banyan tree (national tree). The Lok Sabha seating capacity will be increased to 888 members and the Rajya Sabha seating capacity will be 348. The building will be Technologically well equipped to meet the modern requirements.
Government expects the construction to be done before the 75th Independence Day of India in 2022. But the work is on halt as the supreme court is hearing petitions challenging the project. Recently the supreme court questioned the government for “pushing forward aggressively”. The court had given permission to carry on with the paperwork but has restricted from going ahead with the construction work.
Amidst the pandemic, when the government is still waiting for a green signal from the supreme court to start the construction work many are disappointed with the government’s decision to construct a new parliament building. A very famous Indian actor Kamala Hassan who is also a politician has tweeted ” Why a 1000-crore parliament when half of India is hungry, losing livelihood due to coronavirus. When thousands died as the Great Wall of China was being built, the ruler said it was to protect people. To protect whom are you building the ₹1000-crore parliament ? Please answer my honourable elected PM.”
