India's New Era: Modi Unveils Seva Teerth and Kartavya Bhavan Complex

New Delhi: Calling the North and South Block edicts of a Colonial Era, prime minister Narendra Modi on Friday saidduring the inauguration of Seva Teerth, the new address of the PMO, that “a new history is in the making”. Experience a more refined e-paper today “Today we all are witnessing a new history being made as we enter Seva Teerth and Kartavya Bhavan with the resolve to achieve ‘Viksit Bharat’,” Modi said. “After independence, buildings like South Block and North Block were the catalysts for many important decisions and policies for the country. But it’s also true that these buildings were built as symbols of the British Empire. Their purpose was to keep India bound in the shackles of slavery for centuries.” On Friday, PMO shifted to the new Seva Teerth building, leaving South Block after 78 years. The new office building complex will house the the Prime Minister’s Office, the National Security Council Secretariat and the Cabinet Secretariat, in the Seva Teerth and Kartavya Bhavan 1 and 2 offices. The home ministry had moved some time ago. Some of the first decisions that prime minister Narendra Modi took in the new building include launching of the PM RAHAT Scheme, doubling of the target of Lakhpati Didis to 6 crore, doubling of agriculture infrastructure fund to ₹72 lakh crore, and increasing Startup India Fund of Funds 2.0 with a corpus of ₹710,000 crore. The Kartavya Bhawan 1 and 2 offices will house some of the Modi Cabinet’s key ministries, including the ministries of Defence, Finance, Health and Family Welfare, Corporate Affairs, Education, Culture, Law and Justice, Information and Broadcasting, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Chemicals and Fertilizers, and Tribal Affairs. On Friday, before the move, the prime minister chaired a meeting of the Cabinet for the final time in South Block. For decades, several ministries of the government operated from various buildings scattered near the North and South blocks; the PMO was in the South Block for 78 years. The edifices were designed by British architect Herbert Baker in the early 1900s to house the offices of the British Raj.