Urban News

Also present were prominent leaders like L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj, V K Malhotra, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and A K Walia.

At 112 m, the centre is the tallest building in Delhi and is touted as a tourist attraction by the corporation and the state administration.

Developed at a cost of Rs 500 crore, the building has been in the news, especially over the last year and a half. Among the issues was the delay in passing the proposal of the new building. The project could manage just a single bidder — Parsvnath Developers. More recent was the BJP-Congress divide over naming the building, with the former wanting to name it after Jan Sangh founder S P Mukherjee and the latter insisting that it either be named after Mahatma Gandhi or be called as ‘Civic Centre’.

While the building has been inaugurated, work on the interiors of the auxiliary wings remains to be completed. The Opposition leaders in the MCD have claimed that Mayor Kanwar Sain, whose term ends next week, ensured that the building was inaugurated before the municipal elections.

“The building makes us proud but work remains to be finished. What was the rush then? It is just a way of gaining cheap publicity for the Mayor and the leader of the House before their terms end,” said MCD leader of opposition J K Sharma. While the construction in the main building is complete, last-minute work like plumbing, installation of electrical fittings was on even on Thursday. Work also remains outside the building in the common area that will be developed as a cultural centre

MCD has finalised its plans to shift to the new premises, scheduled to take place in six phases. The Engineering department will be the first to move and the Deliberative wing the last.

The agency also plans to hire a consultant next month to develop the Town Hall into a tourist destination by converting it into a heritage hotel. Many conservationists are protesting against the plan, arguing that converting the heritage structure into a hotel will ruin the structure