NEW DELHI : The costs of New Parliament Building and Vice President Enclave projects have gone up due to increase in GST, cost of materials — particularly steel and cement — wages, strengthening of Parliament building and additional security provisions, housing and urban affairs ministry informed Lok Sabha Thursday.
When the tender for New Parliament Building was bid out govt had claimed savings as Tata Projects had bagged the project quoting Rs 862 crore against the govt’s estimated cost of Rs 971 crore. Similarly, in case of VP Enclave, Kamladityya Construction Private Ltd had bagged it quoting Rs 206.5 crore against the estimated cost of Rs 214 crore.
The ministry, in its reply, did not mention the revised cost of the two projects, which are part of the mega Central Vista redevelopment project. Though it has so far not responded to queries about the updated cost of the two projects.
TOI has learnt that the revised cost of New Parliament Building is around Rs 1,200 crore, nearly 25% more than what govt had estimated. In the case of VP Enclave, sources said the project cost went up due to additional works and last year Delegated Investment Board (DIB) had approved revised expen diture around Rs 260 crore.
On Thursday, in the written reply to a question from TMC MP, Mala Roy, minister of state for housing and urban affairs Tokhan Sahu said, “There was cost escalation in New Parliament Building and VP Enclave due to (1) increase in GST rate from 12% to 18% effective from July 1, 2022, (2) escalation paid due to increase in prices of steel, cement and increase in labour wages during the period of execution of work, (3) additional security provisions decided by security agencies during execution of work and (4) variations in view of design of structure according to earthquake zone-V for New Parliament Building.”
TOI on Jan 20, 2022 had first reported that while the project was planned to meet the requirements of safe structure in areas falling under Seismic Zone-IV, later it was felt that for long life of the building it should meet the requirements of structures built on areas falling under Seismic Zone-V. Officials have maintained silence about the updated cost while pointing out that several requirements for security reasons had to be made during the execution phase.
These two projects and revamp of Kartavya Path have been completed. The ministry informed Lok Sabha that construction of three buildings under Common Central Secretariat (CSS) being built on the plot where IGNCA was located will be completed in May this year. One more building under the CCS project will be completed by April 2026.
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