DON’T ABANDON PARLIAMENT HOUSE: KARAN SINGH'S PLEA

Former Rajya Sabha MP and Congress veteran Dr Karan Singh has urged Vice-President and Rajya Sabha member M Venkaiah Naidu to abandon plans for constructing a new building in place of the beautiful, unique and circular Parliament building.

In a letter to Naidu, he suggested changes in the existing Parliament House building to accommodate more members, creating space for them by shifting unnecessary offices and materials out of the present building and extend the halls to accommodate more members.

The existing Parliament building "should, on no account, be abandoned" as "we will never be able to build such a structure again, and to shift into a modern building will deprive us of the special ambience of the old one."

Dr Singh has given lengthy suggestions on how the existing Parliament House can be retained and they include shifting the Lok Sabha to the Central Hall where the Constituent Assembly met for several years and the Rajya Sabha moved to the Lok Sabha hall, with its old smaller hall used as a central hall-type lounge for the MPs.

"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," he wrote.

The move to have a new Parliament House came from Vice-President Naidu who urged Prime Minister Modi on August 5 to undertake the modernisation of the Parliament House. Since then, the Modi government has already awarded a contract for project management consultancy to an Ahmedabad-based firm to design the Parliament building, common central secretariat building and the central vista -- a 3-km stretch from India Gate to Rajpath. This architect firm had designed the BJP's new headquarters, undertaken Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project in Ahmedabad and executed the redevelopment of temple complex in Varanasi.