Central Vista: Heritage buildings will not be demolished, assures Puri

He also said that for new Vice President and Prime Minister houses, the design has not received

Dismissing concerns over the fate of heritage buildings due to the redevelopment of Central Vista, Union Housing and Urban Development Minister Hardeep Puri on Monday said no such buildings will be demolished.

Insisting that the Central Vista project has legal clearance, the Minister said “none of the historic, cultural, iconic buildings will be touched and will remain exactly as they are."

Hitting out at the Opposition parties, Puri said he has been noticing that a false narrative is being created over the Central project.

"It is not a vanity project, and this is a project of necessity," Puri asserted while addressing a press conference.

He also said no design has been finalised for a new Prime Minister's residence and only two projects — the Parliament building and Central Vista Avenue — are currently being executed at a cost of around Rs 1,300 crore.

Read | Delhi HC dismisses plea to halt Central Vista redevelopment work

The old Parliament building comes under Seismic Zone IV and... the people’s representatives should be able to sit and conduct the business,” he also said.

The minister cited an article written by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh calling for a new Parliament building and said that in 2012, Meira Kumar’s Officer on Special Duty (OSD) wrote to the housing ministry’s secretary clearly saying that a decision has been taken to build a new Parliament building.

The Central Vista redevelopment project involves constructing a new Parliament building, offices to Members of Parliament, remodelling of Central Vista Avenue (Rajpath), constructing new residences for the Vice President and the Prime Minister, inter-connected common secretariat comprising 10 new buildings and demolishing some buildings on either side of Rajpath.

The Centre had planned to complete the entire Central Vista project, entailing an expenditure of Rs 23,000 crore, by 2024, but the deadline had already been extended to 2026.

Opposition parties have criticised the Centre for pursuing the Central Vista project amid the Covid-19 pandemic and demanded the project be scrapped and the money utilised to improve healthcare infrastructure across the country.