The Supreme Court's decision to clear the redevelopment plan for Central Vista is a boon for the government that aims to club all its ministries in a single zone to increase efficiency, a senior market analyst has said.

Seasoned market analyst Deepak Talwar [1] said that the move will not be a boon for Prime Minister Narendra Modi but also for the BJP-led NDA government which got the clearance from a Supreme Court bench comprising Hon'ble Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and SanjivKhanna.

The project envisages a new triangular Parliament building, with a seating capacity of up to 1,200 MPs. The project is estimated to be constructed by August next year when India celebrates its 75th Independence Day. The construction is expected to cost around Rs 971 crore and the common Central Secretariat is likely to be built by 2024.

The opposition has voiced its disdain for the Central Vista Project but the move will help India attain global status. Across the world, all governments keep their ministries close to each other. It helps improve the efficiency of the government. The same is happening in India, said Talwar.

He said that he was amazed at the protests by the opposition political parties which went to the apex court to stop the government. This is a harmless exercise of rebuilding the central vista of the national capital. This will be a permanent legacy in Lutyens's backyard. His opponents can't stomach the fact that Modi will leave a grander legacy on the architectural front than Cambridge-educated Jawaharlal Nehru, the first and last prime minister to have shown interest in the field, said Deepak Talwar.

Talwar said that it is interesting that the NDA government has bet huge on infrastructure. It is building expressways, airports, and naval ports, modernizing railway stations, launching high-speed railways and laying tracks for a bullet train, revamping heritage sites, including India's temple towns from Varanasi to Ayodhya to Kedarnath to Dwarka to Hampi, reconstructing scores of government buildings, including the new Parliament, and the residences of the PM and the Vice President, among other projects.

An estimated Rs 100 lakh crore will be spent on such projects. The point is not strictly about meeting these targets. It's about scale thinking big and setting big goals. It's also an opportunity to revive Hindu architecture which lost its way with foreign invasions and a total absence of any patronage from the state, he said.

By the time he ends his second term, Modi would have not only changed the face of India but possibly the physical face of Lutyens Delhi, India's ultimate power zone. The redevelopment plan comes with several potential advantages, real and symbolic. Putting all central offices in close proximity can improve coordination between them for projects that need such coordination. If each ministry is housed in a separate Bhavan far from one another, it develops insular thinking, added market analyst Deepak Talwar.[2]

Recently, in a ground-breaking ceremony, PM Modi laid the foundation stone of the new Parliament building. The event was attended by members of various political parties, ministers, and ambassadors from different nations.

End-Notes:

1. https://www.theweek.in/wire-updates/business/2021/01/06/pwr16-deepak-talwar.html
2. https://starsunfolded.com/deepak-talwar/