New Delhi, Dec 26 (PTI) The Government's plans to build India's biggest centre for performing arts in the national capital have been put into cold storage in view of the Central Vista project.
The Culture Ministry recently told a Parliamentary panel that the shifting on the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) to Jamnagar House had made the continuation of the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) project unviable .
Due to Central Vista, NCPA is at a very nascent stage and the project has not started yet and no time frame can be promised for its development, the ministry said in a reply to the Committee of Assurances of the Lok Sabha.
The Government had planned to develop the NCPA on the sprawling campus of the IGNCA adjacent to the India Gate lawns.
The NCPA was billed as an auditorium with seating capacity of 1,800 to host various performing arts events in the national capital which lacks such a facility.
The auditorium, planned on the IGNCA campus, was to have supporting public facilities such as cafeteria, bookshop and outshine international performing arts centres.
India's first performing arts centre was build in Mumbai at Nariman Point which was spread across seven acres of land reclaimed from the sea.
Facing the Arabian Sea, the NCPA Mumbai campus is home to five theatres, as well as galleries, libraries, restaurants and numerous reception spaces.
It boasts of the best-appointed auditoriums in India and NCPA frequently attracts major events from overseas. It is ideally suited to host large productions, including fully-staged operas and ballets.
The IGNCA had prepared a detailed project report for setting up a NCPA within its campus and sent it to the Finance Ministry for approval in 2019.
The Finance Ministry had made certain suggestions about international benchmarking following which the project was being reviewed in its entirety.
In the meantime, the government decided to redevelop the Central Vista which required shifting of the IGNCA to another location, making the NCPA project unviable.
