Swarnim Sankul-I: Narendra Modi's Rs 150 crore office

11 Jun 2013, 09:00 AM IST

1 / 14 Swarnim Sankul-I: Narendra Modi's Rs 150 crore office Vishal Dutta, ET Bureau



In April, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, moved into a new office in the capital Gandhinagar. Built at a cost of Rs 150 crore and spread across 35,000 sq ft, the four-storey building has been unofficially dubbed as "North Block", not in the least because of Modi's prime ministerial ambitions.

2 / 14 Global corporate look At first glance, the new office, painted in a uniform cream colour, holds few surprises.



Even from outside, it is clear that great care has been taken to give it a global corporate look.

3 / 14 Swarnim Sankul-I Officially, it is called Swarnim Sankul-I, one of the twin buildings that dot each side of the Gujarat Assembly.

4 / 14 Rooted in the Indian backdrop But it is also rooted in the Indian backdrop - it faces the north, considered auspicious according to Vastu Shastra.

5 / 14 Modi's office A box-like exterior houses Modi's office on the third floor, which leads to a sprawling balcony that offers a direct view of the newly built Mahatma Mandir, a convention centre and memorial dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi.

6 / 14 Ground floor Visitors are greeted with customary security checks. Soon after, one hits a wide passage that leads directly to a round reception table in wood on the ground floor lobby.

7 / 14 Metallic lifts that serve all floors Again, one gets the feeling that one is in a corporate office rather than a sarkari one. Here, visitors come across a second layer of security personnel.



Get used to the security: there are checks on every floor. Look up to see a ceiling presenting an Oculus. On the right of the ground floor are four metallic lifts that serve all floors.

8 / 14 Display of awards A gamut of awards won by the Gujarat government is displayed in glass and wooden cupboards next to the lifts.

9 / 14 Auditorium, two committee halls The ground floor also boasts an auditorium, two committee halls and a conference hall named after the four major rivers of Gujarat: Sabarmati, Tapi, Mahi and Narmada.



The cabinet meeting hall has been named Girnar Khand, a tribute to the home of the Asiatic lions.

10 / 14 Adorned with French windows The lobbies on all floors are adorned with a French window, a top-down casement that lets in sunlight. This saves electricity, a design intervention made at the insistence of Modi. Indeed, Modi seems to have closely supervised the construction.



"The CM was very particular about the quality of the building," says Bimal Patel, one of the architects based in Ahmedabad.

11 / 14 Spacious All lobbies sport 49-inch LCD television sets. They are spacious, a marked departure from the congested corridors of the earlier building.



Two mediumsized lawns adorn the backyard and serve as a link to the Assembly. A raft of paintings doll up the walls aesthetically.

12 / 14 Offices on each floor Cabinet ministers' offices on the second and fourth floors stand out for their space management. Each office sports a huge chamber with an ante-chamber and each ministerial enclave holds a couple of cubicles for staff along with a small conference room and waiting room.



The entire building can accommodate 1,000 employees.

13 / 14 Special access point for Modi's convoy of cars The main entrance apart, there is a special access point for Modi's convoy of cars. This point is covered in concrete roofing and a front wall. Needless to say, this area is cordoned off.



This has led to talks that Modi's office is bulletproof. Officials denied this. But the building is under constant CCTV surveillance.