Indain Express 06.03.2010
Civic Centre to be named after Jan Sangh founder
Express News Service Tags : corporation, civic centre Posted: Tuesday , Mar 09, 2010 at 0117 hrs
New Delhi: BJP has its way as resolution passed by naming committee will be finalised after approval from MCD House
Putting aside all arguments of Opposition Congress in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and even a recent recommendation from Lieutenant-Governor Tejendra Khanna on naming the new Civic Centre at Jawaharlal Nehru Marg in the Capital, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided to stick to its initial proposal.
The new headquarters of the civic agency will be called Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Seva Kendra, the MCD naming committee has finalised.
According to MCD Leader of House Subhash Arya, the naming committee passed a resolution to this effect last week under Section 42 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act.
The minutes of the resolution were confirmed by the agency on Monday and will now be tabled before the MCD House. It will be implemented once the House passes it. “It is only befitting that the MCD headquarters is named after the great leader. While the decision faced opposition from the Congress, we never thought about changing it,” Arya said. “We are confident of the support of the House and after the next meeting, the resolution will be implemented,” he said.
The MCD has further decided to name the five blocks of the 28-storey building after Indian rivers — Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati, Kaveri and Godavari, Arya added.
Earlier last month, during a media visit to the Civic Centre, the BJP and Congress members of the MCD had got into an argument over naming the new building. While the BJP members expressed keenness on naming it after Jan Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, the Congress wanted to name it after Mahatma Gandhi.
The Congress members even met L-G Khanna with a complaint on the BJP’s move to name the building after their leader.
L-G Khanna is understood to have shot down both proposals and instead suggested the new building be called “New Town Hall”, since the MCD currently functions out of Town Hall in Chandni Chowk,
After completion, the Rs 500-crore state-of-art Civic Centre will be the tallest building in the city and will house all departments.
