Police Memorial: a Rs 15-cr ‘mistake’

Nearly Rs 15 crore was wasted in the construction and removal of the Police Memorial in Chanakyapuri, near Teen Murti.

Structure was removed as it blocked the view of the Rashtrapati Bhavan; RTI applicant says MHA didn’t reply if it’s contemplating action against those responsible for the planning error

Nearly Rs 15 crore was wasted in the construction and removal of the Police Memorial in Chanakyapuri, near Teen Murti. And no one is ready to take the responsibility for this expensive ‘mistake’ committed while raising the building — its height was blocking the view of Rashtrapati Bhavan.

In reply to an application filed by a resident under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) did admit it was the ministry’s decision to establish the Police Memorial at Chanakyapuri at a cost of Rs 13.85 crore. But it did not answer if the government was contemplating any action against the officials responsible for granting the green signal for the memorial.

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Devashish Bhattacharya, who filed the application around seven months ago, is yet to get replies to all his queries. According to him, the MHA first forwarded his application to the Ministry of Culture and then to the Ministry of Urban Development.

Sources said the demolished structure was resting at a CRPF camp in Ghitorni area.

In the revised plan for the memorial, its height was asked to be raised to 47.22 metres from 31.5. At that time, the Ministry of Civil Aviation had permitted the maximum height at 41.68 m. Architects were asked to submit a study of the area to justify the increase of height after which the proposed height was fixed at 44.5 m, with nod from the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

After the memorial was constructed, PILs were filed in the Delhi High Court, which ordered a stay on the construction.

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Bhattacharya said: “The MHA, which should be aware of the nitty-gritty with respect to construction of the projects they are funding, are passing my application to other ministries. They first transferred it to the Ministry of Culture, which sent it back, saying they don’t have any information on this. Later, the application was sent to the Ministry of Urban Development.”

Bhattacharya said the UD Ministry transferred the application to the CPWD, which was yet to respond.

He added that if he didn’t get a reply within 15 days, he would move the Central Information Commission for fixing the responsibility of the Central Public Information Officer for not providing the information.

Bhattacharya said it was surprising that the government didn’t move the Supreme Court and readily accepted the High Court’s stay order.

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The case
In 2005, the Delhi High Court had restrained the government from going ahead with the construction of the Police Memorial in Chanakyapuri. Petitioners had contended that the structure with four stainless steel arms holding a globe “will impinge over the glory of the Rashtrapati Bhavan from Shantipath”. Claiming that the raising of the memorial was totally out of context and sync with the aesthetic, architectural and historical character of Lutyens’ Delhi, they said the proposed structure was approved without considering the unique and distinctive architectural character of the area.