A group of retired Civil Servants has expressed their disappointment to Prime Minister Narendra Modi through a letter over the Centre’s ambitious Central Vista Redevelopment Project. The former officers have called this project wasteful and unnecessary.
There are 69 retired bureaucrats who have questioned this project under the aegis of Constitutional Conduct Group. They claimed that country’s health infrastructure badly needs investment. Instead of investing in the health sector, the Union govt is investing in unnecessary projects.
The former officers who expressed their disappointments former IAS officers Jawhar Sircar, Jawed Usmani, N C Saxena, Aruna Roy, Harsh Mander and Rahul Khullar, and former IPS officers A S Dulat, Amitabh Mathur and Julio Ribeiro.
A new Parliament complex, government buildings for central ministries, a new enclave for the vice president and a new prime minister’s office and residence among others will be constructed under the central vista redevelopment project. All these constructions would be in the heart of the national capital.
The Central Public Works Department (CPWD), which is executing the project, has revised its estimated cost from Rs 11,794 crore to Rs 13,450 crore.
The letter reads “We are writing to you today to convey our dismay at the manner in which your government, and you, as its head, have chosen to completely disregard the rule of law in the matter of the Central Vista Redevelopment project. This project, from its very inception, has been marked by a degree of executive highhandedness rarely witnessed before.”
“We are writing to you today to convey our dismay at the manner in which your government, and you, as its head, have chosen to completely disregard the rule of law in the matter of the Central Vista Redevelopment project. This project, from its very inception, has been marked by a degree of executive highhandedness rarely witnessed before,” alleged the letter.
“Of particular concern is the manner in which environmental clearances were obtained for a plan which treats the green spaces and the built heritage of the central vista as an unnecessary hurdle to the achievement of objectives driven by monumental ambition,” it further alleged.
The former civil servants also wondered what locus standi the prime minister has to lay the foundation stone of the Parliament building.
“The prime minister is the head of the executive, not of the legislature. For a building that will accommodate the two Houses of Parliament, the appropriate protocol would have been for the President of India to lay the foundation stone. This was a clear instance of breach of constitutional propriety,” the letter alleged.
Modi had on December 10 laid the foundation stone of the new Parliament building.
