According to the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), the Vice-President’s and the Prime Minister’s new residences are scheduled to be completed by May 2022 and December 2022 respectively.
The environment ministry’s expert appraisal committee (EAC) had earlier granted the necessary clearance for the rest of the buildings under the Central Vista plan. These include a Common Central Secretariat and the Special Protection Group (SPG) building.
The CPWD, which is the agency heading the Central Vista Project, submitted to the ministry that the work on Parliament is scheduled to be completed by November 2022. The Vice-President Enclave will be completed by May 2022 and the PM’s residence and the SPG building will be built by December 2022, The Hindu reported.
The total cost of project, including a Common Central Secretariat, has been estimated to be ₹13,450 crore.
Handled by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs, the project involves the inauguration of a new Parliament building by India’s 75th Independence Day in 2022, while the entire plan, including the construction 11 administrative buildings is slated to be finished by 2024.
Tasked with the construction of the new Parliament complex, the project was handed over to Tata Projects Limited on 29 September last year.
Congregated on 13 April, the EAC meeting was made public on Monday.
The EAC (Infra-2) recommended granting environmental clearance to the project subject to the specific and standard EC conditions as specified by the Ministry, The Hindu reported.
Besides the new Parliament building and Prime Minister’s Residence, the redevelopment of the Central Vista, the nation’s power corridor envisages a common central secretariat, revamping of the three-kilometre Rajpath from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate, the new Prime Minister’s Office, and a new Vice-President Enclave.
The Hindu reported that according to legal researcher Kanchi Kohli from the Centre for Policy Research, “The Central Vista project has been broken up into several components: a new Parliament, Central Vista avenue and now this consolidated proposal which still does not include the Prime Minister’s Office, as the land use change for that is still pending.”
Kohli added, “The EAC, which had asked the CPWD to avoid a piecemeal approach and submit a consolidated proposal back in November 2020, recommended environment clearance going against its own observations. In effect, the cumulative environmental impact of the Central Vista project, which also includes constructing the new India garden on the Yamuna floodplains has not been assessed,” The Hindu quoted.
Even as the second wave of COVID-19 ravaged India, disrupting families and resulting in thousands of deaths on a daily basis, the going into the billion-dollar Central Vista project has also been subjected to criticism.
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