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Amit Shah announces land for additional Haryana assembly building in Chandigarh
Union home minister makes announcement after chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar raises demand, citing space crunch in the existing heritage building that it shares with Punjab
Union home minister Amit Shah on Saturday announced land for setting up an additional Haryana assembly building in Chandigarh.
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Chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar promptly took to Twitter to thank Shah on behalf of the people of Haryana for accepting the state government’s demand and announcing land for the construction of the additional assembly building in Chandigarh.
Shah was chairing the Northern Zone Council meeting at Jaipur in Rajasthan.
Explaining the need for the new additional building for the Haryana Vidhan Sabha, Khattar said that a new delimitation is proposed in 2026, on the basis of which the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections will be held in 2029. It is estimated that according to the population of Haryana in the new delimitation, the number of assembly constituencies will be 126 and the number of Lok Sabha constituencies will be 14.
Need to create more space
At present, there are 90 MLAs in the Haryana assembly. “Yet, there is not enough space available in the existing building to even accommodate these 90 MLAs. It is also not possible to expand this building, because it is a heritage one. It is, therefore, requested that sufficient space may be given in Chandigarh for the construction of a new additional building for the Haryana Vidhan Sabha,” Khattar said.
He requested that the entire share of Haryana should be provided in the existing building also. “Even after 56 years have passed, we have not got our complete rights. The 24,630 square feet area in the assembly building was given to the Haryana Vidhan Sabha Secretariat. But the 20 rooms that came to our share are still in the possession of the Punjab assembly. There is not enough space for our employees as well as for meetings of legislators, ministers and committees,” he said in a release.
Urging the Union home minister’s intervention, Khattar had earlier said: “Therefore, we have demanded land from the Chandigarh administration to construct an additional building for the smooth functioning of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha. The land has also been identified for this. The home minister is requested to intervene in this matter and get us land for the additional building of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha,” said the chief minister.
Chandigarh admn allots 10-acre site
Khattar and Speaker Gian Chand Gupta had visited the proposed site for the construction of a new legislative assembly building in June. The proposed site is situated near the railway station traffic light point on IT Park road.
Last month, the speaker had said that the Chandigarh administration has agreed to allot a 10-acre site to the Haryana government for the construction of the new assembly building. The CM and the speaker held discussions with the Chandigarh administration officials about the two other sites. Khattar took detailed information about the sites from officials of the urban planning department, Chandigarh. He also enquired about the length, width and other measurements of the site covering 10-acre land. Officials apprised the CM about ownership of the land and other formalities.
