 Welcome once again to this series of five episodes on the Central Vista and thank you mother for joining us here and Madhav Ravan who is an architect and who's been a pioneer right since the beginning when this movement started against the redevelopment of the Central Vista and you know all those issues that were raised. I think it was two years ago when this discussion started and two years down the line we have now some work being executed. So in the execution phase actually Madhav just to tell you that we have been able to interview a few of your architect friends and you know we have been able to cover some of the important elements of this redevelopment for example Romy pointed out that look it's more to do with Vastu that's why they're so determined to go ahead and you know time frame is so important. Then of course we had Vivaan Sundaraman who said you know it's a kind of metamorphosis from the era of anxiety to the era of fear where you know era of anxiety produces creativity but here actually we are witnessing the murder of creativity either we are killing that creativity and then we have seen also the Supreme Court judgment to one and then again people going knocking doors of the Supreme Court and then the high courts asking that look at least in the pandemic spare the people. But then we've seen what the judgment has been and a finding post on the petitioners. So given that as a background but we have also seen the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs the minister himself actually defending this project very vociferously and saying look this is the new era the modern era that we're talking about and you see once we refurbish all this I mean it will be very iconic. So I think let's start from there I mean I mean I mean what what the minister has said and not to actually miss the point that one of the important elements that this government has been advocating of course it comes in very in a disguised form it doesn't mention about the Prime Minister's mansion you know the SPG all that stuff not the public spaces that I just calculated before starting this interview mother and please correct me if I'm wrong but I think what I could calculate is it's nearly 120 acres of public land which is being usurped you know and where government buildings I mean the period that you had sent to me I mean I was just going through that document and actually this is what I could make out maybe just correct me if I'm wrong it's massive 120 acres right in the heart of the national capital you know and you are transforming this land from public land to government offices and terming that the government offices are also public but I think let me just start by asking you there are certain guiding principles that this government is saying you know they're five important guiding principles and according to those guiding principles the government says look this is how we are going to refurbish the central Vista and you should allay all your fears and all that that is being actually the spread are outside I mean I mean it's it's it's not the way I mean I mean like you and all of us we are projecting so I think what is your take on it I think that well thank you to Kendra for having me over this is the second time like you pointed out it almost a year and a half since we spoke and sadly you know the thing is that I you know you say movement and these are grand terms but the fact is that what troubles me most about this project as it did one and a half years back was how the government or let's say the CPWD since they are the people driving this project seems to have a very fast and loose grip on what is legal and illegal and permitted and not permitted as per the bylaws I mean I don't need to remind you to go back too far but in the years 2006 and 2007 in Delhi there were massive demolition drives for unauthorized construction massive sealing drives for illegal occupation for use land use violations these matters went up to the court then also since now we are being told that the court I mean that is also an incorrect reading of the court judgment in fact it gives very it's disrespectful of the court judgment the way the ministry says that it's got a green signal from the Supreme Court but my point is in that time 2006 2007 Delhi High Court they basically declared that 80% of Delhi was illegal because people weren't taking land use and permitted authorized construction seriously and this is a fundamental way if you're going to turn a majority urban country in a few years then urban and municipal laws are at the basis so I want to first unpack what the ministry in its response causes calls guiding principles of this project I think we should understand that these are we're not expecting government to give us guiding principles for a project of this scale and nature and impact we want them to first at least hit the low lowest denominator of being legal so that they don't have to live in the ignorance government changes of two years that denominator means the basic statutory laws that are existing okay so in these guiding principles you actually are seeing the government treat law like it's some philosophical position so let's look at what they first start with they start with heritage conservation yes you see when you say guiding principles it allows you know like I don't know if you've studied philosophy but if philosophy needs to evolve you cherry pick from various philosophies to evolve philosophy forward this is history of philosophy so but you can't cherry pick law you see law is what the statutes carry at the time of that act it is not retrospective it is not speculative it is what it is at that point in time and right now they say the guiding principles I believe the first one is heritage conservation well if then let's look at the heritage conservation law and see how well they've done by the supreme god itself their own so-called green signal the majority judgment the minority judgment unequivocal that everything the government has done is illegal there's no doubt in the minority opinion it's the majority that even they are troubled by the way this government treats heritage law by insisting that they get clearance from a heritage conservation committee that finds its origins in law you know it's almost like if you you know fail to show up for your examination the the question paper and the answer sheet is sent home and said you just fill it up sign at the bottom and send it back to me so my point is that you know we all have these statutes in place to preserve and to improve the quality of our collective lives heritage is a very important part of our quality of our lives built heritage particulars so they've evaded I think there are various articles written about how they've tried to evade using you know fabrication of authority by making CPWD a local body so that it doesn't need to go to NDMC for sanction and so on I won't get into the details actually no I think I just wanted to ask that question also I mean pointedly to you mother because you know that's a serious error because I have been a deputy mayor of Simla and I know I mean even if you have to construct a house you know the kind of transparency that is required is like the phenomenal phenomenal but here and actually it's a local body it's a local body which is which is which is in trying the task absolutely as a mayor of Simla if you had to deal with unauthorized construction you would order your commissioner to take a bulldozer and go and demolish illegal construction right now that is how that is how the that is how local bodies assert their policing authority that's how they they enforce their master plan now the fact here is the the ministry seems to think it's perfectly all right to make CPWD which is really the construction arm of the government of India it's like a contractor it's a developer is going to self sanctioned by virtue of it being recognized as a local body by Delhi Urban Arts Commission and Delhi Urban Arts Commission isn't even authorized to give such recognition so you fabricated absolutely yeah now my point is all of us when we build our buildings if we encroach on public land if we violate bylaws if we build more than what is sanctioned we face the threat of demolition actually right and and if if I have to look at the signal national signals this is the this is the premium national space it's that democratic heart do you and I want to live in a country where the democratic heart the the the space that represents well they call governance I call democracy in in in this country to live in the ignominy that that is going to be an illegally occupied illegally constructed space forever Mr Puri refers to it as being there for 250 years I can't imagine a greater shame than to say that something has been built so illegally and you see the Supreme Court was not asked whether the buildings comply to bylaws or they comply to development regulations the Supreme Court was asked whether they felt the government had moved in a way in which it is empowered to do so or not now but they they have mother invoked the provisions of the you know that the government building activity denied they had denied in their statement this is actually some very astute people have identified this trick of allowing CPWD to be local body yeah they have denied the fact that they're using government building act they insist that this is as per democratic norms now my point is I'm not on democracy that is for the lawyers to argue I am on what architects need to consider and what we all as beautiful citizens trying to adhere to a master plan and development controls all commit ourselves to that is civic consciousness that is civic responsibility civic duty that you don't build illegally now in a government that are making us they're now in the process of making the next master plan 2041 what is the value of that piece of paper it's not worth the pay but it's printed on because of this project you they they talk about guiding principles right so heritage we spoke about right there is a deliberate malafide intention and action on the government in terms of reducing what is called the central vista heritage precinct into a collection of heritage buildings they're not going to touch the buildings they say but you consider that the new parliament is going to be three stories higher than the old parliament you don't touch it but you definitely reduce its glory you definitely violate its sanctity as a heritage space it's like building a glass tower next to is it is it is it is it the reason why we find you know playing with the MPD the master plan of Delhi I mean you know that if they are from 120 to 200 I mean this is this is how how we conclude that is it you see I'll tell you the other trap of appointing a contractor as your local body which is what they've done with the CPWD you you look at the submissions they've made in the environmental impact assessment they have said that the permissible FAR here is 200 and they have declared we have achieved 200 but if you bother to divide the numbers they have submitted themselves it comes to an FAR of 300 which are violating of 50% that means you're allowed to make a three-story building you make a five-story building yeah these these see now that's a you know these errors have a remarkable way of helping this project forward rather than you know if I made errors in my submission to local body my project would stop they would steal the building but somehow the nature of these errors is such that it gets them approvals now you and I can have different opinions on why that is happening or we can have a same unspoken opinion on how these approvals are being got but the fact is the error remains on paper they cannot they cannot fudge the numbers they've submitted themselves so the this is why you need an independent local body and another point they make about the NDMC being a nominated body and not a elected local body I beg to differ the NDMC has 13 members in its council yeah they have elected people yeah yes and they have three elected people and four members who are supposed to be eminent personalities appointed by in consultation with the chief minister so there's a fair bit of expertise independent expertise and independent local revenue I would say it's it's it's worse than the elected institution but it is better than the CPWD oh definitely absolutely yeah you can't expect the contractor in no condition as an architect I'm telling you the contractor is not incentivized to stick to the law they have to be penalized into compliance that is the only way because they're profit motivated people okay so the second principle I think mother which way we should jump from heritage is you know what they're saying expanding public space I think it's not an error it's a scandal what they're mentioning and they're blatantly mentioning it I mean what is it that is happening so I think impunity this yeah yeah with impunity yeah how do you get this impunity by dumbing down the public infantilizing us now public space comes under two categories they can be public space that is privately owned and public space that is publicly owned so say temple grounds which are privately owned temple could be public space because you allow mailers to happen but it's owned by the by a private individual or a private legal person public owned a public space that is governed on public space is actually public owned public space they have a fiduciary response someone is just a fiduciary just a custodian yeah ministry has a feudal mentality they are the people with the colonial hangover they are the people with the white man's complex I'm glad I'm glad you brought in this whole I mean I mean we call it jargon I mean the terms of feudalism and feudal mentality yeah absolutely they you can see their statement you see even in court the government the Solista general representing the ministry claims that they are landowners now if they if being a government in a democratic system you are a government in power for five years so that ownership of land is transitory and it is fiduciary that's the important thing you're holding it in trust right now in that trust you have allocated land use now we'll come into public public land being defined by use you can have recreational public land and you can have public semi public use that is for museums health center galleries he they say we are increasing public land all they are doing is if there was a x amount of land to be the district park and recreational park in central vista they are actually what they have done is they have violated heritage norms by changing the plot lines of ignca building adding two acres to the central rajpat lawns but on the other hand removing one third of it for surface level parking so net we are in a loss of green area but we're passing it off as an increase in public land and all other compensatory greens they have taken over district park to build parliament also yeah so all the compensatory greens are where they are located if you look at the land use change in this thing Timarpur in chandraval nagar so that's where we find our recreational space and i think the from here another principle and i think the mother where we really need to i mean it's a big scandal if that is true because that's what i saw in their reply and the minister which has who has been advocating it's a TOD yeah you know that so one of the guiding principles happens to be a TOD because you have a a metronome connecting all this stuff and this is exactly what they said i mean the reverse that they said in the supreme court that it's not and TOD for us of course for an architect for a planner people know but i mean they know but not the people i'll explain isn't it land monetization yeah so they've surely gone they've they've submitted in supreme court they don't intend to do TOD here but the minister and the ministry themselves are now making public statements that is a transit oriented development guided project yeah guiding is not what we need compliance i'll say that again compliance TOD has certain specific requirements there is a 30% mandatory residential company 30% of your FAR generated has to be residential are they going to now house ministers in there so yes that's what i'm asking so it doesn't qualify as TOD yeah i'm saying it's TOD doesn't make it so it has to comply to TOD to get the TOD excess FAR that is what they want the guiding principle is can they be guided to the excess FAR but you can't just get it like that you know it's a give and take you have to then the second thing is you have to have reduced parking TOD for government use takes parking norms from two cars per 100 square meters of FAR use and brings it down to 1.8 the parking they've submitted in their EIA is 40% more than this norm so it doesn't it so just calling it TOD is just basically they have decided to reward the CPWD with extra FAR and they have no way of justifying it so they use jargonized words like TOD TOD is meant to develop underdeveloped areas it's not meant to completely demolish our national heritage it's meant to malign this policy this policy yeah sorry yeah just correct me TOD also means land monetization no well of course i mean are you not realizing i mean this could be one of the features could be you know you allow some space when you're when you're creating this large FAR to be further commercialized so if you look at chapter scale of the master plan of deli transportation there's one entire segment called development control regulations for transit oriented developer that is the law by law now they're allowed to monetize that is 10% of the FAR they generate can be leased out to companies for private that's it yeah so what better what better to have community to the parliament ministry is trying about some notional rent of 1000 crores which doesn't exist by the way all the ministry i've i've looked at each ministerial address they all exist on buildings and premises owned by the lndo so the rent that each ministry pays they pay to lndo lndo comes under ministry of housing ministry of housing provides it as income to the government of india and so the balance book balances so it's a circular end it is a complete fabrication the existing ministry building every minister sits in an office that it belongs to the government of india there is no private rent here this is this is a complete fabrication so and also this 10 thousand crores of rent if they're bringing in people the eia documents suggest they're only adding 10 000 people to the existing 50 000 here so are they saying they're paying 1000 crores rent currently to house 10 000 employees that's ridiculous then each of them is sitting in a you know the most prime real estate in the country at that rate so that's what you were saying that 1000 crore what what they what they've been advocating that will be will be actually saving this one yeah i think and the fourth and the fifth one that they speak about you know the green buildings and the inspiring works modern technology again cherry picking how how environmental law has very very strict they have spent their entire time budgeting environmental law submitting proposal the new parliament is submitted as an extension of old parliament in one to one authority to another authority is submitted as a new parliament there is constant flexibility what height are you going to how many trees no one knows how many trees are getting cut the eia suggests that there are about the there was a tree cutting tree transplantation tender which actually says there are approximately 3000 but we don't know the numbers it's up to the winning bidder to ascertain so ulta chor kotwal kodante i mean or whatever the chor is the kotwal you're telling him to tell you how many trees he's going to transplant successfully i mean that it's just it just defies all so the whole problem stems with a government of india ministry of housing urban affairs cpwd looking at the statutes and laws like they are philosophical discussions we are in the face of climate change and pandemic there are changes to our work style right you know you may unlock construction sites but offices are still largely working from home as long as we have a third wave fourth wave coming in yeah you see the reason of they say oh greater efficiency do they not use computers and personal devices are they going to have a pigeon delivery system parindepal they'll attach a letter and it'll fly down the corridor and is it like harry potter with mail delivery by outs you know what are they talking about co-location for you know there are 260 conference rooms in this complex 260 eating 55 people why don't they like you and i are having a virtual discussion yeah courts have virtual hearings then what is this idea of having co-location for greater efficiency you look at the per employee allocation of space thickened if you look at what they've submitted in their EIA yeah they are they are providing 195 square feet per employee you know 80 percent of the bureaucracy in a ministry is actually less than grade c employees yeah so they don't have that luxury so it's actually the senior bureaucrats and the senior ministries who are giving themselves palatial offices that are the size of bigger than a normal Indian apartment they've got yoga rooms they've got music rooms they've got state of the art gym and this is being done as a essential service because we feel that if bureaucrats have music rooms and yoga rooms they will somehow work for the benefit of our country that is broadly what I can understand from this set of you know both the both what I read in the paper that the ministry is saying and what they they have submitted in the environmental impact assessment so it's it's you can't thank you thank you thank you mother for really I mean bringing out the facts to the fore and lastly I think what is important you know one of the one of the reasons that the minister has been pointing out is that it's quite environment-sustainability I wish somebody could actually map the kind of construction activity that is going on the total quantum of cement and the total point of construction material that is going to be used in this entire process and let me remind our our audiences that you know if you see the total carbon emissions in the last three decades 50 percent of the total carbon emissions in the history of our evolution actually has come in the last three decades and just 20 companies in the world are responsible for 33 percent of these emissions and both and and these 20 companies are paying into cement and fossil so you have more cars I mean I as as the person who have who has served the city for five years I would tax people for they have to come in the car actually what we require is a different kind of mobility a different kind of of habitat that we are creating I think this is you're setting the standards way too high for the CPWD I'll be very honest with you it's a very simple thing in their environmental impact assessment where they are trying to do an environmental management plan with no qualms they have admitted they're going to demolish four and a half lakh square meters of building space their intention is to construct approximately 16 and a half lakh new construction you looked at carbon footprints 50 percent of damage yes has happened in the past I will go even further 30 percent of that is linked to new construction and construction absolutely so if required yeah so if you know we feel we should be leading the world in terms of green policies we are trying to solar electrify ourselves we are doing so many things but these are all at the consumption end you know one of the principles if we are talking about philosophy that's why that's why I added those yeah carbon principles is reuse reuse reduce recycle so reuse and one of the guiding principles of government office chapter in master plan is the decentralization of government so if they want to have guiding principles they should stop looking at laws and trying to give them philosophical interpretations I think I think mother we also need to build this argument in the context of those sustainable development goals the 17 SDGs that we are talking about this is completely divergent too yeah I'm deeply saddened by this project as a practicing architect because it takes my city's master plan and tears it to shreds it takes whatever work anyone is doing on the environmental front you know I being an architect I'll be the first to admit construction by definition kills the environment there is no way of escaping it but all of us are trying various ways to build more conservatively to build more frugally to make buildings that are significant so that they last and last not just you know I mean on one hand this they keep saying that these buildings are 100 years old they're demolishing all the ones that are only 40 years old or the last the last biggest the 2011 is a state of the art cutting edge green building green building and and big and 250 crores was spent in 2011 building that building and they're demolishing it without a quorum so this is not even green wash this is just just a fabrication and obfuscation and this is either one can conclude that the CPWD is extremely incompetent or it is extremely malefied there are only two conclusions that can be drawn. Now this is what I'm asking everyone I mean I mean I mean wherever I'm able to interact with our guests what do you think is the future? The future? Yes of this project of this project yeah. So I won't see the thing is that it's off late because of the construction going on during the pandemic surge it has come up into much political discussion I just as a genuine responsible citizen of this country who wants to not allow something that is my most sacred democratic space to be argued about with the politics of the day I want to have a longer term perspective on this my biggest problem that deeply saddens me taken there more than anything else is that is the ignominy is the sheer what do I say the humiliation of having our capital complex where we will draft laws where we will legislate from where we will administer this glorious vast federal country with so many stakeholders from a place that will forever be illegal because now they have done the deed of so-called getting it sanctioned the only way they can redeem it is by declaring it illegal and then trying to regularize it which is shameful with 70 years of democracy in this country down the drain with this project. Thank you mother for speaking to us and I wish I mean because you I wish that the fate that we saw with the world child in Germany I mean Albert Speer and Hitler I wish something of that sort could be repeated. In the long run Germany has done a lot to remedy the excesses during the war. The UK does a lot to remedy the excesses although arguably not enough but to remedy the excesses during colonial so every government eventually history will judge from a distance of time I am just saying as a citizen of this country living today responsible for my future generations and future citizens of this country I feel the biggest shame I will carry with this project is the fact that it will stand illegal. You can have discussions about buildings being legal and they're not there but once they are there you bear the shame you bear the shame. Thank you mother it was very nice being with you thank you so much. Thank you thank you for having me take me.