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Location: Assembly, north Hardinge Road Project: Construction of Legislature Building and four secretariat blocks Components of annexe building: A convention centre with a eating capacity for 550 people and three conference halls with capacity of 400, 200 and 100 people, respectively Rooms: 250 rooms for being used as chambers for ministers, chief minister, heads of state committees. Besides, there will be a library and 20 common rooms Cost: Rs 362 crore Start of work: Chief minister Nitish Kumar laid its foundation stone on January 26, 2010 Construction firm: IVRCL Ltd Original deadline: January 2012 Present status: Work on super-structure has been completed but engineering issues came up in finalising the work on the main convention hall, furnishing work in progress Revised deadline: March 1, 2016

Financial constraints have paralysed the dream project of chief minister Nitish Kumar - a Parliament-like structure in the state.

Close to six years have passed since January 26, 2010, when Nitish laid the foundation stone for the ambitious Assembly annexe building project but it continues to remain afflicted with some problem or the other.

In spite of being a brainchild of Nitish, the project has been stalled time and again for a plethora of snags ranging from engineering, environmental, administrative and financial issues.

Originally aimed at addressing acute space crunch at the existing state legislature building, Nitish had instructed his officials to develop a structure in the annexe building, which would be similar to the central hall at Delhi's Parliament House Estate.

After formation of the Grand Alliance government and deputy chief minister Tejaswi given charge of minister of building construction department, claims are being made that the annexe building would be made ready by the upcoming budget session of the Assembly but officials in the building construction said it might take a bit longer for finalising the project.

Poor financial health of the firm constructing the building and engineering issues in construction of its central hall are the latest in the series of issues, which acted as roadblock in progress of the project in the past six years.

"The work was recently stopped for around two months owing to financial issues with IVRCL Ltd, the firm which has been awarded the contract for construction. The company had gone almost bankrupt as a result their bank forfeited an amount of Rs 4.5 crore paid by us as next instalment for making progress in the project," said a senior engineer associated with the Assembly annexe building project.

The main convention centre in the building has been developed as a cylindrical structure with a dome on its top. The diameter of the dome of Parliament House's central hall is 98ft while that of the convention hall in Assembly annexe building is around 48ft.

Like Parliament's Central Hall, which is used for holding joint session of the two Houses, the convention centre in the Assembly annexe building in Patna would also be used for similar joint sessions of the Assembly and Council. Besides, similar to Central Hall, the convention centre would be used for address by the governor to members of both Houses as well as informal discussions among the legislators.

As per practices followed in holding the sessions in Assembly, the governor addresses members of both Houses assembled together in the first session after each state election and in the budget session. At present, the joint address by the governor is held at the Assembly building, which has a seating capacity of 324 people, owing to the size of the state legislators' Assembly in united Bihar-Jharkhand.

The seating capacity of the convention hall in the under-construction Assembly annexe building would be 550. Besides the main convention hall, the annexe building also has three more conference halls with capacity of 400, 200 and 100 people, respectively.

The engineer said the base structure of the convention hall goes 22ft below the ground level. The total height of the convention hall, including its dome, is around 115ft. "The work on the convention hall was stopped for a few weeks because of engineering faults, which were overlooked at the time of making its design. The issues are now getting resolved and the work on it would start soon," said the engineer.

Besides, the convention hall and conference rooms, the annexe building also have 250 rooms. Sources claimed that these rooms would be used as chambers for the state ministers, heads of different state committees and other dignitaries. A big and lavish chamber is also being developed for the chief minister.

In a recent meeting between officials in the building construction department and other involved agencies to review the progress in this project, March 1 was fixed as the deadline for completion of all works.