The House of Parliament was designed by British architects Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker in 1912-1913 as part of their wider mandate to construct a new administrative capital city for British India. The construction had started in 1920 and ended in 1927. The project of a new parliament building has shocked countless Indians, more so the ones with clearly thinking heads. Sixty-nineseasoned former civil servants have written an open letter to Prime Minster Modi expressing disgust over the Central Vista redevelopment project.
They, under the aegis of the Constitutional Conduct Group, feel enormously distressed that when the country's public health infrastructure is crying out for funds, this wasteful and unnecessary project is being readied in a hurry to be implemented at high speed taking precedence over a number of social priorities including health, education and poverty alleviation.
The signatories to this strong note include former IAS officers Jawhar Sircar, Jawed Usmani, N C Saxena, Aruna Roy, Harsh Mander and Rahul Khullar, and former IPS officers A S Dulat, Amitabh Mathur and Julio Ribeiro. The NDA Government puts up several pleas in defence: the population has grown huge; delimitation processes have begun to increase the number MP seats to represent citizens better and solve people’s problems easily.
Most importantly, the 75-year-old structure is beyond repair; and huge sums of money are drained every year for the upkeep of the old structure. Accordingly, some NDA loudmouths have been spreading the bluff that the project is only a small Rs 971-crore one in stark contrast to the 10-year-old UPA project design estimated at Rs 20,000 crore for a much smaller structure.
Even if it were all true, the project at the present is unwelcome as the economy is on a dangerously-downward slide, mainly for the pandemic that has brought unprecedented misery to millions.As the protesting former bureaucrats believe, the Government has chosen to invest astronomical sums of public money on the project to show off pomp and grandeur that symbolises lowest-grade mis-governance.
The new Central Vista in the heart of the national capital has a new Parliament complex, Government buildings for Ministries, a new enclave for the Vice-President and a new Prime Minister's office and residence among others. All these are beautifully intact with a highly-respectable heritage value. No sane Government of any country would ever pull down invaluable heritage structures still robust and intact.
The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) has, meanwhile, revised its estimated cost from Rs 11,794 crore to Rs 13,450 crore. But the crooks in the fold have been duping the public saying it would cost barely a meagre Rs 971 crore. Not that the UPA was any better.
The Sonia Gandhi-controlled UPA Government had countless thugs who had emptied quite a few public coffers by siphoning incalculable money from so many projects by striking deals clandestinely. But the ‘holier than thou’ NDA Government led by Modi is not clean of daylight robbers and scheming advisors.
Doubtlessly, the new parliament building is just not required at the present. Rather than pulling down, all standing heritage structures have to be maintained to ensure mint condition. That shows a nation has character and respect for history and unforgettable characters who have left behind so many enviable structures built with caring and dedication.
The former bureaucrats have said in their letter to Modi, “We feel devastated at the manner in which your government, and you, as its head, have chosen to completely disregard the ‘rule of law’ in the matter of the Central Vista Redevelopment project. This project, from its very inception, has been marked by a degree of executive highhandedness rarely witnessed before.
Of particular concern is the manner in which environmental clearances were obtained for a plan which treats the green spaces and the built heritage of the central vista as an unnecessary hurdle to the achievement of objectives driven by monumental ambition.” They are aghast that the Modi regime has no locus standi to lay the foundation-stone of the parliament building as the PM is only the head of the executive, not of the legislature. For a building that would accommodate the two Houses of Parliament, the appropriate protocol would have been for the President of India to lay the stone. This was a clear instance of breach of Constitutional propriety.
Even more disturbingly, the signatories allege further that the act was ‘brazen impropriety’ as the matter is still sub-judice. The pleas of population growth, delimitation and raising the MP number for better governance is all humbug.
The mighty kingdom of England had built the West Minister Palace in 1016 when the population was only 2.6 million. The kingdom of England developed to the kingdom of Great Britain with Wales and Scotland joining in good time.
Subsequently, the kingdom annexed Northern Ireland too to become the United Kingdom. By 1840, the population had risen to 15.9 million. Yet, they never pulled down the 824-year-old structure to accommodate bigger number of lawmakers in 1840. It is only a fire that destroyed the whole structure.
And they came up with the one we see today in London. Today, the population has hit a whopping 66 million from a mere 2.6 in 1016. The 1840 structure is maintained like a temple. No one complains about crumbling structure or lack of space or not raising the number of MPs. The Central Vista proposal sounds like a big scandal in the making.
As mentioned above, there is no DPR, which could have been contested by different parties. Further, the process from calling tender to selecting the architect to changing the land use to getting environmental clearances is all opaque.
The proposal has shown a complete disregard for environmental regulations and other statutory clearances. Also, there is violation of the basic land laws as it stands in contradiction to the Delhi Master Plans of 1961 as well as 2021.
Modi is a noble-hearted soul. His trader-class advisors are driving him mad. They are crazy to show off glamour and glitter at the cost of public welfare.