No reason why Central Vista can't be rebuilt: Puri

Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday said that government infrastructure, including the North and South Blocks, was built more than a century ago and there is no reason why the Centre should not go for a new-look Central Vista aesthetically while preserving the heritage. The minister for housing and urban affairs said that some people are talking about the Central Vista makeover without knowing what is happening.

"Look every 100 years somebody has to take charge and decide what the city is going to look like. Delhi in its present from...the current Delhi governmental infrastructure (including) Rashtrapati Bhavan, North Block, South Block, were built in 1910s or 1920s," he said at a function here. "We are paying thousands of crores of rent to house government buildings. We have the land, so there is no reason why we can't do it in an architecturally, aesthetic way, preserve the heritage etc and create a new Delhi," he added.

The redevelopment of the Central Vista — the nation's power corridor in Delhi — envisages a triangular Parliament building next to the existing one, a common Central Secretariat for ministries and the revamping of the three-km-long Rajpath — from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate. At present, the South Block houses the Prime Minister's Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of External Affairs, while the North Block has offices of the Home Ministry and the Finance Ministry.

Puri, who also holds the civil aviation portfolio, said that the high growth in the sector clearly reflects that the country's economic growth is not slowing down. "In civil aviation, we are looking at 200 airports, 100 we have now and we are not looking at 435 million passengers, we are looking at a billion passengers," he said.

He added that people here and abroad flagged concerns about the health of the sector after collapse of a major domestic airline, but the increasing number of airlines in Indian skies and construction of new airports are telling a different story. "Today India is the third largest domestic civil aviation market...Number of aircraft in Indian skies was 650 or so. Today we are already 760, we are adding 2 aircraft every week," he said.

The civil aviation secretary, he said, is saying that the number of aircraft will reach 1,200 in the coming short- to medium-term, but "I will say we are going to 2,000". He added that with the increasing passenger throughput at airports, in the coming five years, passenger traffic in India will be more than that of Heathrow Airport.

"...anybody doing this growth in civil aviation at a time when a major airline system has ceased operations, that's not an economy I would worry about, because that is not the economy showing signs of slowdown, that is an economy which is on a phase of rapid and aggressive adjustment," Puri said. He also said that an average metro daily ridership has increased from 24 lakh per day to 65 lakh per day.

Talking about Delhi, he said the population of the national capital will be over 2 crore by 2021 and out of that 76 lakh will have new homes because of land pooling and 40 lakh will get new homes on account of regularisation of unauthorised colonies, and 10 lakh will under slum rehabilitation. At the function, the minister, who is also the minister of state for commerce and industry, released an ORF's report titled India at USD 5 trillion - strengthening opportunities and removing hurdles.

It suggests steps to attract foreign companies and provide business friendly environment in the country. The report suggested that states need to provide an enabling environment to attract companies into manufacturing; development of infrastructure, rethinking on land laws and reworking on labour laws.

"There are 36 central laws governing labour and several state laws. These laws have become counter-productive to the twin objectives of job creation and industrial peace, hurting the very same people it is meant to benefit," it said.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)