Defence Minister Rajnath Singh laid the foundation stone of the Army HQ’s new building in Delhi Cantonment, on 21 February. The defence minister also performed ”bhoomipujan” (ground-breaking) ceremony at the venue, in the vicinity of the Manekshaw Centre.
The ground-breaking ceremony began with inter-faith prayers as four religious teachers, representing the four main religions of India, read lines from their sacred texts, wishing prosperity and well being for the building that will come up and people who will work in it.
Christened ‘Thal Sena Bhawan’, the multi-storeyed complex is designed “like a rising sun” and it will be spread over nearly 39 acres, officials said.The Army headquarters is currently housed in the iconic South Block at Raisina Hill in Lutyens’ Delhi.
Approximately 7.5 lakh sqm of the area will be constructed to house the office complex and parking. A total of 6,014 offices will be constructed which will house offices for 1684 officers both military and civilian. 1,300 sub staff will be accommodated in the new building. The new building complex will also have 250 security personnel for whom lodging facility will be there on the campus.
The cost of the project will be in excess of Rs 700 crore. The Defence Ministry in a statement later said the building, expected to be constructed in five years, will house offices, residential complex for security personnel with basic amenities.
The building will comply to ‘prestigious norms’ and have a GRIHA-5 rating. It will have three entry-cum-exit points – NH-44, Parade Road and Link Road.
There is movement of about 3,000-4,000 vehicles every day from various army establishments in the city and this would be not required once the ‘Thal Sena Bhawan’ comes up. There will be parking for 4,000 cars.
The new department of military affairs headed by the chief of defence staff (CDS) will be housed in this new building.
The new complex has been conceptualised as a multi-storey green building, adopting Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) norms.
The need for a centralised office space for army had been felt for many years. There were eight locations where offices are being run. Now it can function under one roof. Presently, the Army Headquarters functioning is spread over several pockets like South Block, Sena Bhawan, hutments area, R K Puram and Shankar Vihar, it said. The office of the army chief is also located in the imposing South Block which is part of the historic Raisina Hill complex built during the colonial era as part of the “new imperial capital” of the British Raj.
At present, the South Block houses the prime minister’s office and ministries of defence and external affairs, while the North Block has offices of the home and finance ministries. The two blocks fall under a very high-security zone. The North Block and South Block, Viceroy’s House (now Rashtrapati Bhavan) and Parliament House, surrounded by a lush green landscape and imposing fountains, were built during the construction of New Delhi that started in 1912.
Both the blocks, which symbolise the government authority since their inception in Lutyens’ Delhi, are likely to be converted into a museum as part of the government’s Central Vista Redevelopment project, officials in the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry had said in January.
The housing ministry is the nodal agency for the ambitious redevelopment project of the Modi government.
The proposed work will generate minimum of 2 lakh hours of skilled and unskilled work. This will generate jobs for youth of the country.
The work for construction of Thal Sena Bhawan has been approved by the Government of India. Accordingly, work for Go Ahead Sanction for Preparation of Detailed Project Report (DPR) and Enabling Works for Thal Sena Bhawan at Delhi Cantonment was approved in FY 2019-20.The work was sanctioned to make up the existing deficiency of 44 per cent and also to accommodate the Army HQ in one place.
“The proposed Thal Sena Bhawan will bring all Army HQ offices under one roof thereby improving the working efficiency, while reducing the carbon footprint and logistics requirements. It will also allow more family time for all soldiers tenanting peace posting at Delhi,” Army Chief Gen MM Naravane said.
The army chief and other important directors located in South Block will also have to vacate this building. Therefore, it is important to construct a new army headquarters for the Indian Army. Significantly, the Indian Army has been demanding a new building for many years so that different offices could be brought together in the city.
The prominent offices that will shift to the new complex include the Engineer-in-Chief’s office, Territorial Army, recruitment branch, some offices of Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff, Army Welfare Housing Organisation, medical branch, National Cadet Corps, Remount and Veterinary Corps and the Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme.
To be sure, the Sena Bhawan, which is located near South Block, and houses several key offices of the army, will continue to function from its current premises. The new complex will help decongest the crowded Sena Bhawan. The army chief and several other senior officers, who have their offices in the South Block, will continue to work from there until the defence ministry moves out to a new location under the Central Vista redevelopment plan. In that sense, the new complex isnot really the army’s headquarters.
However, both Army Chief and the Chief of Defence Staff are likely to be in the South Block till the time the iconic building houses the Ministry of Defence.
Currently, the Chiefs of the Army and Navy have their offices in the South Block, while the Air Force Chief sits in Vayu Bhawan that houses most of the IAF offices. In comparison, the offices under Army and Navy headquarters are scattered.
In 2015, then Defence Minister Arun Jaitley laid the foundation stone of Nau Sena Bhawan-1, at a site opposite to Sena Bhawan in central Delhi. But in the last four years, there is barely any progress on the project.
However, construction work is going on Nau Sena Bhawan-2, which is within the cantonment area and close to the proposed Army HQ, which is being called Thal Sena Bhawan. The NSB-2 is likely to be finished by 2021 providing an opportunity to the Navy to integrate at least some of its offices under one roof.
