Construction major Tata Projects wins contract to construct the new Parliament building at a cost of Rs 861.9 crore, Central Public Works Department (CPWD) sources said on Wednesday.
“This cost includes operations and maintenance of Parliament for five years. Tata projects’ financial bids were 8.40 per cent below the tender cost. Larsen and Toubro Ltd was the second bidder. Only two companies had applied for the financial bid,” they said. According to sources, Larsen and Toubro Ltd submitted a bid of Rs 865 crore.
A target has been set to have the new Parliament building constructed by 2022.
“We have emerged as the L1’ in the comprehensive bidding process and are first in line to be awarded this prestigious contract to construct the new building of the Parliament, a Tata Projects spokesperson told IANS.
The new Parliament building will come under the Central Vista redevelopment project. It will be constructed in close proximity to the existing Parliament Building and it is scheduled
to be finished in 21 months. The new Parliament is going to be a ground plus two-storey triangular-shaped building. The work for it is likely to start after the on-going monsoon session of Parliament. The new Parliament building will have a built-up area of a whopping 60,000 metre square.
In what can be good news post-Covid-19 when social distancing is the norm, both the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha will have enlarged chambers in the new Parliament building. A parliamentarian today gets roughly 40 cm by 50 cm of space to sit while it will increase to 60 by 60 according to the new arrangement.
Last year August, both the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha chairman urged the Modi government to modernise the present British Raj era-Parliament building. However, much before that, it was former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan who had pitched for a new Parliament building. She had said back then that the colonial building was showing “distress”. She had even written to then urban development minister and now Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu urging the same.
With agency inputs