Press Gallery: 16-year wait for PA building nears end

The new Punjab Assembly building is nearing completion after 16 years.

The speaker has given the deadline of December 25 to convene the first assembly sitting in the new building, due to which construction work is being done in three shifts.

Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi laid the foundation stone of the building in 2005 as the chief minister, but the government of PML-N postponed the project, which increased its cost from Rs1.38 billion to Rs5 billion.

Before the completion of the project, 11 chief engineers retired, a contractor Mohammad Shafiq and an SDO, Mohammad Khalid, died, while the Hasnain Construction Company, which got the contract, defaulted and its security deposit of Rs25 million was confiscated.

Ismat Dhelon, the project in-charge, came to the Punjab Assembly as SDO 12 years ago and has now become a Superintending Engineer (SE). In the hall of the new building, 422 seats are being provided for the members of the assembly, while 800 seats are being provided in the two galleries. About 250 seats will be provided in the lobbies. Three committee rooms have also been built. A party meeting and press conference hall is also part of the new building. It will have a seating capacity of 250 people. There will be 36 offices for ministers. They will also have a waiting area. A large video wall has also been made for briefings in the hall. The Azan from the new mosque will resound in the hall. A new MPA hostel is also being constructed, in which there will be 104 suites.

It is an eight-storey building with two basement levels and a parking capacity of 600 vehicles. It will be connected to the assembly hall through an underpass. In addition, 60 residential quarters are also being built for assembly employees. Through information technology, the entire proceedings of the house will be paperless. There will be a Wi-Fi system and laptops will be used. Seats will be allotted and biometric attendance will be required before the microphone is turned on.

There will be an electronic voting system with the red button for refusal and green for yes. Those who do not want to vote will press the yellow button. However, the name of any member will not appear in the secret voting.

The proceedings of the house will be translated into Urdu, English, Punjabi, Seraiki and Pothohari. TV channels will be facilitated for live coverage. The Punjab Assembly will have six bulletproof gates named Al-Falah, Darbar, Duty Free, Flaties Hotel and Wapda House Gate.

Calligraphy, painting, furniture and renovation work in the new building has been assigned to the NCA. However. the import of IT and sound system equipment was delayed due to coronavirus. The final shipment of sound system equipment from the UK is expected to arrive on November 30. On the other hand, the IT company has asked for a dust-free environment in the new building for the installation of equipment. However, the cabling work has been completed.

Sandstone has been imported from Jaipur, India in the style of an old building in the front of the new building of the assembly.

Expensive wood has been imported from Myanmar and Africa. Shiny white onyx has been imported from Afghanistan. The SE said 97% work has been completed and it will be completed by December 25 as per the deadline set by the speaker.

He said that with the passage of time, the scope of the new assembly building has also increased, which has hiked the cost. It had been planned that the assembly hall would have a crystal dome, which had been converted into a concrete structure, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22^nd, 2020.