Delhi: MCD’s plan to build city’s tallest building scrapped after merger

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has decided to return a plot of 8.75 acres located adjacent to the Indraprastha DTC bus depot in central Delhi to the Delhi Development Authority, scrapping a proposal to build a separate headquarters for the erstwhile South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), which officials claimed could have been the tallest building in Delhi.

Currently, the 112-metre-high Civic Centre in central, which is the MCD headquarters, is the tallest building in the city.

A senior MCD official aware of the development said the land was allotted to SDMC by DDA to build its own headquarters. But now, since the three civic bodies have been unified, there is no need for a separate office space.

“We will return the land pocket to DDA. The land use plot located near Pragati Maidan was changed from horticulture (green space, park) to office space for this project. We are expected to pay ₹1.25 crore per year for the using the site as office space. Now, there is no need for this additional expense. The land will be returned,” the official added.

With this, the Civic Centre on Jawaharlal Nehru Marg will stay as the headquarters of the unified MCD. After the civic body was trifurcated in 2012, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation was allocated the 28-storey Civic Centre as its headquarters. The South Delhi Municipal Corporation also shifted its headquarters to the building, which is the tallest in the city, as a tenant. And, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation got office space in a building at Patparganj Industrial area.

The project to develop the 145-metre-high 33-storey SDMC Civic Centre near Pragati Maidan was floated in 2017-18, and a memorandum of understanding was signed between SDMC and the National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) for the development of two towers at an estimated cost of ₹559 crore by 2020.

A general body meeting of SDMC in August 2018 decided to name the proposed headquarters after former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But the project was mired in controversies since its inception.

A town planning official said that a five-acre section of the plot was earlier earmarked as “district park” in the Master Plan of Delhi (2021) and its land use was modified to “government (G2)” office space category. This attracted criticism from several citizen groups and RWAs who objected to the change in land use, citing shrinking green space and deteriorating air quality in Delhi.

In March 2019, HT reported that the India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), objected to the plan citing its possible adverse impact on traffic in the neighbourhood, and also on the ₹2,700-crore Pragati Maidan redevelopment project. ITPO also said that the proposed building was planned to come up near one end of a 1.2km-long tunnel (towards Ring Road) between Purana Qila Road and Ring Road via Pragati Maidan, which was “lifeline” of the Pragati Maidan exhibition cum convention centre.

Later that year, the Public Works Department of the Delhi government also flagged objections to the proposed structure, saying that the 38.6km-long East-West corridor starting from Anand Vihar will also pass through the same site.

A second MCD official said, “The project remained stuck with these objections and it was further slowed down due to the pandemic and the acute financial crunch that the civic body was facing.”

“Returning land is the only viable option,” the official added.

Former SDMC mayor Narendra Chawla, during whose tenure the project was cleared by the House, said the objections raised by several agencies derailed the project. “This would have been tallest building in the city and we had emotional attachment with it as we had proposed to name it after former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But if the project is not feasible then we should discard it. There is more than sufficient space at the Civic Centre for running municipal headquarters. A section of the building has already been rented out to the income tax department,” he added.

The merger of the three civic bodies has allowed the unified MCD to rationalise office space and use several properties that were used by the erstwhile bodies to earn revenue by renting these spaces.

For example, all offices of the Shahdara South zone that came under the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) will shift to the Patparganj building where the EDMC once had its headquarters. Some of the offices will also shift to the Civic Centre, officials said.

A new 12-storey building that was being made for Shahdara South zone in Karkardooma will now be rented out to other government offices, HT had reported on June 10.

Officials said they will also expedite plans for turning the Town Hall in Chandni Chowk into a museum.