Central Vista project won’t harm heritage buildings: Centre reiterates in SC

New Delhi

New Delhi

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The Centre on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that the Central Vista Redevelopment Project, which involves construction of a new Parliament building and a Central Secretariat housing all government offices, will “protect and preserve” heritage buildings while keeping with the laws and environmental safeguards.

Making opening arguments on a batch of public interest litigations (PIL) challenging clearances related to the project, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta sought to put at rest apprehensions that the project will destroy heritage buildings and alter the landscape of the Central Vista area where the constructions are supposed to come up.

Appearing for the Centre, Mehta said, “The petitioner’s arguments on heritage structure proceeds on a deliberately misunderstood factual position that heritage buildings are being demolished and a new project as “greenfield project” is coming up...The petitioner has purposefully misunderstood the ambit and scope of consultancy contract and presented a false picture that the respondents (Centre and statutory agencies) have abdicated its functioning to a private consultant.”

“Heritage buildings will not be destroyed. The stress on them will be reduced by shifting out government offices from them into the newly planned Central Secretariat building,” Mehta said.

The Central Vista project envisages a new Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, a common Central Secretariat housing 51 ministries in 10 buildings. At present, these offices are housed in 47 buildings in different locations.

A three-km underground shuttle is being planned to provide connectivity with the Udyog Bhawan and Central Secretariat metro stations. The project is estimated to be built at a cost of Rs 20,000 crore to be paid over six years.

On the lack of public participation in the decision-making process, Mehta said, “The entire procedure for getting approval for new Parliament building as per category 8(a) mentioned in the Environment Impact Assessment Notification dated September 14, 2006 is followed to the hilt. The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) has applied its mind in detail. Though no direct participation process is contemplated, detailed representations were received at the stage of grant of environmental clearances, which were examined by the EAC.”

Mehta said the Parliament and common Central Secretariat projects are not integrated but mutually exclusive. “The construction of one does not depend on the other. The year 2022 coincides with the 75th year of India’s Independence by when the new Parliament building is sought to be completed. This was the urgency for beginning with the Parliament project,” Mehta said.

He took the court through the elaborate action plan prepared by the Central Public Works Department, which worked out a plan for noise pollution, air pollution, traffic management, security and waste management.

The bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and Sanjeev Khanna said, “The petitioners have argued that these plans that you prepared were not in public domain. The whole argument is built on the ground that nothing about the project is available in public domain.”

Mehta said much of the information that he has shared with the court was available on government websites. The bench asked Mehta to give a list of such information available for public consumption on government websites.

The bench asked Mehta about the need for undertaking a study, assessing the option of building a new Parliament as against refurbishing the existing Parliament.

Mehta replied, “For us to decide that a new Parliament building is needed, we do not need a separate study.” He compared it by saying, “If feel the house I am living in is not acceptable, do I really need an expert to determine that?” He pointed out that the old building had seepage issues due to the old construction and faced space crunch as members of Parliament during joint sittings were forced to sit on plastic chairs. He said the existing building was not fire-proof or earthquake-resistant.

The proposed Lok Sabha chamber is expected to accommodate 876 seats and the Rajya Sabha chamber 400 seats. At present, the Central Hall has 440 seats and during a joint session of Parliament, temporary seats have to be arranged in the aisle. The new complex will provide for 1,224 seats in the Central Hall, equipped with state-of-the-art technology and seamless movement between the two Houses

On the allegation that the project will be a drain on the public exchequer, the Centre said the government was paying a huge rent to maintain its offices in different buildings. In most buildings, office space was lying unused and commuting between these was proving to be a costly and time-consuming affair.

The rent saved will work out to be roughly Rs 1,000 crore annually, Mehta said, adding, “This will be a cost-saving project.”

The petitions challenging the project have been filed by one Rajeev Suri and former Armyman Anuj Srivastava and others.