JOIN US"There was some problem with the room size. So a few walls are being dismantled. There is no plan to add any new room," Congress activist Kehar Singh Khachi, who is supervising the cottage construction, told IANS.
He said the dismantling work started last month. The house, coming up in typical hill architecture style at a height of more than 8,000 feet amid thick verdant forests of pine and cedar, is to rise from its debris again.
This is the second such dismantling work taking place in the recent past. In September last year, the cottage's slate roof was totally dismantled owing to some fault in its design.
"There was some fault in the design of the slate roof, it was dismantled. The cottage now has a wooden ceiling with a slanting steel roof," said Neeraj Saini, who was overseeing the construction work at the site at that time. Apparently, there was a big seepage problem in the slate roof.
In hill architecture style with wooden frames and a sloping roof, the double-storey cottage, spread over a three-and-a-half bigha (one bigha is 0.4 hectare) agricultural plot, is close to The Retreat, which is the summer holiday resort of President Pratibha Patil, and the Oberoi Group's luxury spa Wildflower Hall. The five-room cottage includes a family lounge and a guest room on the groundfloor. It is located just 15 km uphill from state capital Shimla.
Mangri, a labourer from Jharkhand who was employed for dismantling work, said she has been working here for a month. When told that it belonged to Congress president Sonia Gandhi's daughter Priyanka, she said: "I do not know about Priyanka, but I know Sonia as I have seen her on television."
Priyanka, her children and Sonia Gandhi frequently visit the cottage to inspect the construction work. "It still needs more than a year to complete as construction stops during monsoon (July to September) and peaks during winters (December onwards)," Khachi said.
He also played an important role in helping the Vadras buy the land from US-based Satish Kumar Sood and Satinder Sood in 2007. The then Congress government in the state had relaxed norms to enable the Vadras to buy the land.
Priyanka is one of the most high-profile people to build a house in Himachal Pradesh years after former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee chose Kullu Valley for a cottage. Under Himachal Pradesh land laws, only the state's permanent residents can buy land in the state. Others who want to purchase land for non-agricultural purposes have to seek relaxations under Section 118 of the Land Reforms and Tenancy Act from the state government.