Construction of new Parliament building cleared by environment ministry

New Delhi : The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has given green signal to the construction of new Parliament building. The new Parliament building is a part of the government's grandiose Central Vista project, which involves building a new complex on a plot adjacent to the existing structure at an estimated cost of Rs 922 crore.

The total area involved in building and renovation is 21.25 acres, built-up area of 1,09,940 square metres and will require transplanting of 233 trees.

The move has been severely criticized by the urban planners and civil society groups for investing huge sum of money on renovation at a time when India is facing economic slowdown due to coronavirus lockdown.

They had also raised other concerns as well. They have questioned the reason behind breaking Central Vista, a single development project, into parts, as doubts have been raised whether this has been done to obtain environmental clearance.

The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) had listed the Parliament building as an "individual project" in the EIA documents. It had also stated that there are no "interlinked projects", which LokPATH (people for Appropriate Transformation of Habitat), a collective of urban development experts that are reviewing decisions related to the Central Vista project, has dubbed factually incorrect.

Interestingly, the DDA had changed the land-use of the 9.5-acre plot from "recreational" to "Parliament".