Centre Appoints Ahmedabad-Based Consultant for Lutyens Makeover

New Delhi: The Union government has launched the ambitious project of redevelopment of the Parliament building, Central Secretariat and the Central vista — a three-kilometer stretch from India Gate to Rajpath — and appointed an architectural consultant who has been associated with some important projects when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the Gujarat Chief Minister. The Urban Development Ministry which is helming the project announced that the Ahmedabad-based company, HCP Design Planning, has been chosen as the architectural consultant.

The company is headed by Bimal Patel, who had also carried out the redevelopment of the Central Secretariat and Vista in Gandhinagar and the Sabarmati riverfront in Ahmedabad, apart from the redevelopment of the temple complex in Varanasi, the Mumbai port complex, and the new campus of IIM Ahmedabad.

The Rs 229.7 crore contract awarded is much below the estimated Rs 448 crore, Urban Development Minister Hardeep Puri said. The consulting cost is usually 3 to 5 percent of the total cost of a project. But Puri declined to give the figure for the entire redevelopment. Puri on Friday announced that while the timelines given to Central Public Works Department (CPWD) to complete the Central Vista project is November 2021, the work on Parliament building is to be completed by March 2022 and the common Central Secretariat by March 2024. The Minister clarified that the old heritage buildings will not be pulled down and changing the exterior of the Parliament building is out of the question. (IANS)

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