Dismantled Rajasthan House in Delhi causing more ‘troubles’ to Govt!

Jaipur: The construction of new Rajasthan House in New Delhi has witnessed an unexpected halt as the project has not been given approval for construction by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC). Even the approval file for the site plan of the new building is also stuck. In fact there has been a stay on picking up the debri also and tonnes of debri is lying at the site. Rajasthan House is situation in the VIP area of Prithviraj Road and Lutyens Zone of New Delhi where two buildings, of fifty rooms each, were existent. The current Gehlot government took decision to dismantle the existing structure and construct a new Rajasthan House with completely futuristic facilities for which the state government approved a budget of 138 crore rupees. The PWD has been given the responsibility of construction and the target has been set to complete the project by March 2024.

The work to dismantle the building, keeping in mind the target of March 2024, was initiated in April 2022 and in four months, the building turned into a heap of debri. The plan was that the debri would be removed and in the meantime the permission for construction would be received, vut since the NDMC has not given any permission, the plan has not moved forward. The officials concerned claimed that to get permission from NDMC, application had been given at the start of the year and it was believed that permission would be accorded. But due to the area being ‘VIP area’ and the Lutyens Zone, the file has been stuck due to various objections. Moreover, permission has not been granted to pick up the debri due to the increased pollution level since clearing the debris would add to the pollution level. So the million dollar question that is doing the rounds in political and bureaucratic circles is that when the permission for new construction had not been given, where was then the need to dismantle down the old building. This has resulted in a problem of plenty for the ministers, MPs and MLAs of Rajasthan who do not have a place to stay in. Interestingly, no one is in a situation to answer when the NDMC will give permission.