Today, December 10, Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi will lay the foundation stone for his most ambitious project — a Rs 20,000 crore (Rs 200 billion) plan to redevelop Delhi’s Central Vista that is home to buildings and precincts of historic importance and heritage value, including Parliament, Rashtrapati Bhavan, the iconic North and South Block right up to India Gate.
The project has come in for enormous flak from social, environmental and legal activists with each set having their own set of complaints, but all of which centre around the opacity and hush-hush way in which the scheme is being handled.
Delhi architect Madhav Raman has been closely following the redevelopment plan ever since it was announced in September 2019.
“Today, Delhi is struggling to breathe; you’re running out of drinking water and you’re building a triple basement parking and a ‘toy’ metro train which services exactly a two-kilometre stretch! You will have to remove all the ground water from an area which has the highest ground water table in the city right
— source rediff.com | Dec 10, 2020