The newly built duplex flats will have have earthquake-resistant construction and Green building features like solar panels, LED lights, says CPWD.
New Delhi: Soon all the newly elected Members of Parliament (MPs) will have a swanky modern house in Lutyens’ Delhi. In its first stage, the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) has constructed 36 duplex flats which have modern amenities like modular kitchens, four bedrooms each, a lift and an office area in the North Avenue.
According to officials, there is an acute shortage of residence for the MPs because of which they have had to be accommodated in hotels or state guest houses. The prime construction agency of the central government, CPWD, has been demolishing old houses to make space for new ones.
CPWD in North Avenue of Lutyens’ Delhi has constructed duplex apartments which are equipped with lifts and have a view of the majestic Rashtrapati Bhavan. Each newly constructed flat has four bedrooms, modular kitchen, granite flooring, centralised air-conditioning, a small temple, servant room and a dedicated basement parking.
These houses will soon be handed over to the Lok Sabha Secretariat by the end of this month which will further allocate the houses to the MPs. The new swanky duplex flats have earthquake-resistant construction and green building features like solar panels and LED lights.
The first batch of 36 houses has been constructed at a cost of around Rs 80 crore against the sanctioned amount of Rs 92 crore. CPWD constructed these flats after demolishing the old flats built during 1960-70s. Several old building in Lutyens’s Delhi will undergo hammer by the CPWD to make way for new houses.
“According to the plan, the old flats located in South and North Avenues, which were built a long time ago, will be demolished in a phased manner and the new ones will be constructed there,” said a senior CPWD official.
The new Lok Sabha has around 300 members who have been elected to the Lower House of Parliament for the first time, including cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir, Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Smriti Irani, Sufi singer Hans Raj Hans and Bengali actresses Mimi Chakraborty and Nusrat Jahan Ruhi.
Meanwhile, the government has made temporary arrangements to accommodate the 350 MPs till the time they are allotted full-time official residences in Lutyens’ Delhi.
Till the recent past, the newly-elected MPs used to stay in five-star hotels for which the Estate Department had to bear huge expenses. During a meeting chaired by the outgoing Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, it was decided to stop the practice of housing newly-elected MPs, who don’t have any official residence, in plush hotels.
Instead, it was decided that the newly-elected MPs will be made to stay in their respective state guest houses or the newly renovated Western Court, the state-run transit hostel in the heart of the capital, till they are allotted official accommodation.
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