The building that cost 700 crore rupees to erect has no water supply and not enough furniture

MCD's monumental mess

The building that cost 700 crore rupees to erect has no water supply and not enough furniture

The Rs 700-crore civic centre of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is not just one of the tallest buildings in the Capital. It may be one of its tallest blunders too.

Rock bottom: Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Civic Centre, the new headquarters
of the MCD. file pic

The state-of-the-art building, spic and span on the outside, lacks some of the very basic facilities inside. The building has no water supply, there is not enough furniture to accommodate 3,000 people and cleanliness is a major issue. To top that, during the monsoon season, there were complaints of waterlogging inside.

The civic agency has plans to shift its operations to the building on December 8 from the previous Raj-era Town Hall in north Delhi.

The civic centre building on Vivekanand Marg, formerly Minto Road, was inaugurated by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on April 22. Leader of the Opposition in the MCD House Jaikishen Sharma of the Congress visited the civic centre on Tuesday to see whether it was ready for members and workers. All that he could say after about 45 minutes was: "I am amazed how the 15-16 departments that have been shifted to this building are managing their affairs without water supply in the washroom and untidy surroundings."

"I am going to complain to Commissioner KS Mehra in this regard. It is just not acceptable," he added.
The civic centre is yet to get a safety clearance from the Delhi Fire Department too.

"As the work is not complete, we are only shifting the equipments and other things. All the officials will move in later. It will still take two months more for people to shift to the civic centre," said Yogendra Chandolia, Chairman, MCD Standing Committee, which is responsible for the upkeep of the building.

Need a Miracle

A special puja was held there on last Wednesday before the shifting started. The civic agency is going to move from Town Hall, in Chandni Chowk, to the civic centre in four phases. While the process will start from Thursday, the shifting was expected to be completed by December 8. According to an MCD office order, the civic agency will first move most of the key departments, including health, education, engineering and house tax to the new building. Offices of the mayor, leader of House and leader of opposition will continue to function from the old Town Hall building for now. The existing MCD headquarters in Town Hall is expected to be turned into a heritage hotel or a museum.
The building is expected to cater to 20,000 footfalls a day, will bring under one roof the deliberative wing and different offices of the civic body, which looks after 96 per cent of areas of Delhi. The income tax department will also shift into one part of the building.

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