Congress leader Karan Singh opposes proposed Parliament restructuring

Congress leader and veteran politician Karan Singh has issued a statement opposing the proposed re-structuring of Parliament and Rajpath by saying that at no account, the unique Parliament building should be abandoned as the similar structure cannot be ever built again. As per the statement released by Dr Karan Singh, he further added that shifting to the modern parliament building would deprive parliamentarians of the special ambience of the old one.

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Singh wrote, "I am of the confirmed opinion that the beautiful, unique, round parliament building that we have should, on no account, be abandoned. We will never be able to build such a structure again, and to shift into a modern building will deprive us if the special ambience of the old one. In my view, it should be possible for us to shift unnecessary material and offices out of the present building and extend the halls to accommodate more members."

Karan Singh also added that the unique Parliament building reminds us of our great Constitution makers. 

He said, "We could consider locating the Lok Sabha in the Central hall where the Constituent Assembly met for several years. If the Rajya Sabha could be shifted into the Lok Sabha hall, and its old hall could be used as a central Hall-type lounge for members. This would be far better than abandoning this magnificent building which is redolent with history and the memory of our great Constitution makers and Parliamentarians."

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HCP Designs wins the contract

On last Friday, while briefing the reporters on the proposed project, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Puri said that the Gujarat-based architecture firm HCP Designs had won the consultancy bid for the Centre's project to redevelop the Central Vista including Parliament and Rajpath and develop a Common Central Secretariat for various ministries. 

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"It is a very a major project which will be executed on a mission mode. The time has now come to build modern, world-class, energy-efficient buildings which will be defining the characteristic of Delhi as a leading world capital for the next 200 years,"  said Hardeep Puri. "At present, our government offices are strewn all over Delhi. We want all essential government offices at one place," added the Union minister.

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