Three 12-storied towers with a built-up area of 5 lakh square feet, a parking space for 270 cars, three state-of-the-art auditoriums with a seating capacity of over 1,300 people, a library with specially designed cubicles for research, a five-bed hospital, manicured lawns, and a Hanuman temple where earthen diyas have given way to electric lamps. These are some of the key features of Keshav Kunj, the newly built headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), at Jhandewala in Delhi, where the organisation fully shifted Wednesday.
According to the RSS, Keshav Kunj is spread over four acres and built at a cost of Rs 150 crore. In terms of size, it eclipses the BJP headquarters at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg and has five lakh square feet of space for office and residential purposes, and other activities of the Sangh.
An RSS functionary said the Keshav Kunj has been entirely built from donations of RSS workers and those associated with the Sangh. “As many as 75,000 people have donated anything between Rs 5 to several lakhs of rupees to help build the headquarters,” the functionary said.
The new RSS headquarters has been designed by Gujarat-based architect Anup Dave who, sources said, has earlier been associated with projects of the Gujarat government. The builder involved in the project is Delhi-based Auspicious Constructions, which largely builds malls, business complexes, and parking complexes in the national capital. The firm has, however, also been associated with the construction of buildings of the Sangh in the past, such as the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP)’s Dharma Yatra Maha Sangh building on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, and other Hindu religious structures like Shree Jagannath Sewa Sangh building in Rohini, and the Sanatan Bhawan in Ashok Vihar.
For the past eight years, the RSS had been functioning out of the Udaseen Ashram in Jhandewala, which it had rented to allow for the new construction of its headquarters.
Sources said the Sangh functionaries began shifting to the new building gradually from September last year and have now completely vacated the Udaseen Ashram office, even though work on interiors in some parts of the new headquarters is still on.
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