Central Vista Project

Why in news?

The Central government is planning to restructure the Central Vista.

What is the Central Vista Project?

• The Central government wants to redevelop the Central Vista, the 3-km long stretch from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate.
• Amid the Covid-19 battle, the Centre has been rushing ahead, ignoring pleas to pause it for further deliberations.
• The plan is to construct a new Parliament building by March 2022 and a common central secretariat by March 2024.
• These will be built along with new residences for the Prime Minister and the Vice President near South and North Blocks, which will be repurposed as museums.
• There will be a new building for the Prime Minister’s Office.

What is the draft plan?

• A draft master plan by a private firm contracted by the government has proposed a Parliament building next to the existing heritage structure, and office buildings all along Rajpath.
• These buildings will be built after demolishing existing buildings.

What is the project cost?

• The government has not publicly stated the project’s estimated cost.
• According to the CPWD application for environmental clearance for the project, the construction of the new Parliament building is estimated to cost Rs. 922 crore.

Why the Centre wants to restructure?

• For the pre-Independence buildings that came up between 1911 and 1931, the Centre has cited that the restructuring needs to be done having in mind the structural safety of the existing buildings.
• For the post-Independence buildings such as Shastri Bhawan and Krishi Bhawan, it has cited the need for modern workspaces.
• Once delimitation is done and the number of seats will increase.
• So, there will be need for more space to seat MPs and office space for all of them.

How was the decision taken?

• The decision on redevelopment was taken in a hurry and without adequate consultations.
• The utility of such a massive redevelopment is not easily defendable.
• Nevertheless, the government is eager to recondition the capital’s landscape as its monumental legacy.

What were the actions that were taken in a hurry?

• Independent expert members of the Central Vista Committee could not attend the meeting where it was passed without much discussion.
• The process for change of land use by the Delhi Development Authority was completed just before the lockdown began.

Was there any opposition?

• The Opposition, environmentalists, architects and citizens have raised many concerns even before the pandemic brought in extra issues.
• They have questioned the lack of studies to ascertain the need for the project and its impact on the environment, traffic and pollution.
• But, several key approvals for the proposed Parliament building have been pushed during the lockdown.
• This led to allegations of a lack of transparency.
• There were enough reasons to be circumspect about this grand idea from the very beginning.
• In the situation created by the pandemic, it must be deferred and the idea revisited later.

Source: The Hindu