Delhi: Kartavya Path
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As in 2022
Anuja Jaiswal, September 9, 2022: The Times of India
From: Anuja Jaiswal, September 9, 2022: The Times of India
NEW DELHI: The iconic Rajpath, which has been the stretch where the might of India’s military is on parade every Republic Day since 1950 and has exemplified the country’s rise from a nascent nation to the fifth largest economy in the world, was rechristened for the third time as Kartavya Path by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The PM also inaugurated the newly revamped Central Vista, which has Kartavya Path as its axis and runs east-west from the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Raisina Hill.
The popular congregation green spot for Delhiites has been given a new look with sandstone fixtures, public amenities and upgraded street furniture.
While most of the buildings, including Parliament House and colonial bungalows, around Rajpath were designed by British architect Edwin Lutyens and his associate architect Herbert Baker during the creation of a new capital of British India, much of the space will now be taken up by the construction of new ministerial buildings. Parliament is also getting a new house.
During British rule in the early decades of the 20th century, the boulevard was called Kingsway in honour of King George V, who visited the city for the Delhi Durbar of 1911 when it was proclaimed the capital in place of Calcutta. The name Kingsway was apparently picked up from the custom-built arterial road in London, which was inaugurated by George V’s father, King Edward VII in 1905.
After India’s independence in 1947, the central vista from Rashtrapati Bhawan to India Gate and beyond it, the 16th century Purana Qila was chosen as the ‘heart’ of Delhi and renamed Rajpath. The road was given its Hindi name of Rajpath, which was not quite a literal but an analogous translation of its earlier name.
The British architects’ vision was a city on the lines of other great capitals of the world, with broad, long avenues flanked by sprawling lawns, impressive monuments punctuating the avenue, the symbolic seat of power looming at the terminal point. They found the perfect geographical location for a new city on Raisina Hill, west of Purana Qila. The new capital was developed on a geometric design, mainly employing hexagons and triangles and had as its core the Central Vista.
