India : Why was there a need for a new Parliament House and what is special about it?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new building of the Parliament on 28 May today.

19 opposition parties, including the Congress, have decided to boycott the inauguration ceremony of the new parliament. He says that it should be inaugurated by President Draupadi Murmu instead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Apart from the politics happening on the new Parliament House, there are some questions whose answers are being searched from social media to Google.

What will the new parliament look like, why was it needed, who built it, and will the old one be demolished?

Why was there a need for a new parliament?

The new Parliament House has been constructed under the Central Vista Project. 20 thousand crore rupees are to be spent on this entire project.

From Council House to Parliament House of India, what is the history of this 95 year old building

Inauguration of the new Parliament House: Modi said - will witness the sunrise of self-reliant India, Congress said - Democracy runs on the voice of the people, not the building

Actually, the area near the Rajpath is called Central Vista, which also includes the area of ​​Princes Park near India Gate from Rashtrapati Bhavan.

The Parliament building is about 100 years old. The Central Government says that there is not enough space for MPs to sit in the existing Parliament House.

How will be the new parliament

Shortage of seats – At present, the number of Lok Sabha seats is 545. There has been no change in the number of these seats based on the delimitation done on the basis of 1971 census.

This stability on the number of seats will remain till the year 2026, but after that there is a possibility of increase in seats. In such a situation, there will not be enough space for the newly elected MPs.

What is Sengol that the Modi government will install in the new Parliament House?

Infrastructure- The government says that when the Parliament House was being constructed before independence, things like sewer lines, air conditioning, fire fighting, CCTV, audio video systems were not taken care of much.

With the changing times, they were added to the Parliament House, but due to this, problems like dampness have arisen in the building and the risk of fire has increased.

Security- When the Parliament House was built about 100 years ago, Delhi was in seismic zone-2, but now it has reached in four.

Less space for employees – Apart from MPs, there are hundreds of employees who work in Parliament. Due to the ever-increasing pressure, there has been a lot of crowd in the Parliament House.

How different is the new Parliament?

The Lok Sabha building in Parliament has been designed on the theme of the national bird peacock and the Rajya Sabha on the theme of the national flower lotus.

A maximum of 552 persons can sit in the old Lok Sabha. The new Lok Sabha building has a capacity of 888 seats.

The old Rajya Sabha building has a seating capacity of 250 members, while the capacity of the new Rajya Sabha hall has been increased to 384.

During the joint sitting of the new Parliament House, 1272 members will be able to sit there.

Apart from this, what else will happen in the new Parliament House?

According to officials, all MPs will be given separate offices in the new building, which will have modern digital facilities to move towards the goal of 'paperless offices'.

The new building will have a grand Constitution Hall or Samvidhan Hall which will depict India's democratic heritage. The original copy of the Constitution of India will also be kept there.

Also there will be a large hall for MPs to sit, a library, several rooms for committees, dining rooms and plenty of parking space.

The construction area of ​​this entire project is spread over 64,500 square meters. The area of ​​the new parliament is 17,000 square meters more than the existing parliament building.

What will happen to the old Parliament?

The Old Parliament House was designed by British architects Sir Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker as 'Council House'. It took six years (1921-1927) to build it. At that time, the Legislative Council of the British Government used to work in this building.

Then 83 lakh rupees were spent on its construction, while today about 862 crore rupees have been spent in the construction of the new building.

feature of old parliament

Diameter560 ft (170.69 m)

Areasix acres (24281.16 square meters)

pillar on first floor144

column height27 ft (8.23 m)

building gates12

When India became independent, the 'Council House' was adopted as the Parliament House.

According to officials, the existing Parliament House will be used for parliamentary events.

Tata Projects Limited got the contract to build the new building. He had won this contract in September 2020 by bidding Rs 861.90 crore.

The new parliament building is part of the Central Vista project. The blueprint of this project has been prepared by HCP Designs, an architecture firm based in Gujarat.

The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) had awarded the consultancy work to HCP Design, Planning and Management in October 2019 for the development of Parliament, Common Central Secretariat and Central Vista.

This company has been involved in the development of the master plan of the Central Vista area and the design of the buildings according to the new requirements.

For this, the tender to appoint a consultant was taken out by the CPWD in September last year. An expenditure of Rs 229.75 crore was fixed for the consultancy. HCP Design won this bid.

HCP Design has prior experience in projects like Central Vista and State Secretariat in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, Sabarmati River Front Development in Ahmedabad, Mumbai Port Complex, Redevelopment of Mandir Complex in Varanasi, New Campus Development of IIM Ahmedabad.