New legislature building: U.P. govt’s search for land continues

The Uttar Pradesh government is yet to zero in on a suitable land for a new building to house the state’s bicameral legislature.
A few options though have been discussed at the top level, none of them so far have met the desired criteria and more alternatives are being explored.
The state government has been contemplating a move to have a new building for the state legislature for nearly a decade now.
The search for suitable land for the same was expedited after Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated new Parliament building in New Delhi on May 28, 2023.
The state government had even made a token provision of ₹50 crore in the state’s annual budget for 2023-2024. It appointed a consultant to explore suitable options for the same. “So far, we have not moved ahead with the idea,” said a senior officer aware of the development.
Others aware of the development said CM Yogi Adityanath wants an international convention centre should also come up in the vicinity of the legislature.
The state government has been holding its major programmes like Uttar Pradesh Investors Summit and Uttar Pradesh Global Investors Summit in open spaces using German hanger tents. This needs a larger chunk of land and thus limits the options.
Yogi had turned down the option to have new building in front of existing Vidhan Bhawan using Darul Shafa area. It was considered an option in 1990, and a replica of the existing Vidhan Bhawan was proposed.
The Lok Bhawan has now come up on a part of this space. It has been felt that having more buildings would further congest the already congested area. Area around the Nawab Wazid Ali Shah Zoological Gardens in Hazratganj was also considered an option. This was, however, not taken forward.
As of now, Chak Gajaria farm area at Sultanpur Road is one of the options but the state government is yet to make up its mind. A need to have a new building to house the state legislature has been felt due to paucity of space in the existing Vidhan Bhawan.
The state legislative assembly has a sanctioned strength of 403 members. It had only 379 seats till 2022. Additional rows were added and space within the rows was used to add more seats there. There is a space crunch in the Vidhan Parishad area as well.
As the number of seats in the state legislative assembly is bound to increase in the next delimitation exercise (based on population), the state legislature building will need to have more seats.
To recall, last population-based delimitation was held in 1971. Now there is a freeze on having a census-based delimitation exercise till the first census after 2026.
A debate continues about fallout of such a delimitation exercise and a question mark hangs about the likely timing of such an exercise.
Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Bhawan that houses the two houses of state legislature—the Vidhan Sabha and Vidhan Parishad— was constructed in 1928.
The then Uttar Pradesh governor Sir Spencer Harcourt Butler had laid the foundation stone of the grand building on December 15, 1922. It was inaugurated on February 21, 1928. A sum of ₹21 lakh was sanctioned for the Vidhan Bhawan building, which is the finest example of Indo-European architectural craftsmanship.