Chief minister Nitish Kumar will not able to showcase the new extension building of Patna High Court, named centenary building, to the Prime Minister when Narendra Modi attends the centenary celebration of the court on March 12.

President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated the yearlong centenary celebration of Patna High Court on April 18 last year. The centenary building was to be inaugurated during the concluding ceremony. The three-storey structure was initially scheduled to be ready by February 4 but the deadline has been extended to June 20. Senior officials in state building construction department claimed that the work on the extension building was delayed by six months because of the contractor, IVRCL Ltd.

The state government has debarred IVRCL from taking up future projects because of the delay in construction of the Vidhan Sabha annexe building. The annexe building, work on which is delayed by nearly two years, is expected to be inaugurated around March 25, said a senior engineer in the building construction department.

"The high court centenary building project is delayed by six months," said the engineer. "The contractor is almost bankrupt and does not have sufficient financial resources to carry out work at the required pace. Though funds for the project have been provided on a timely basis, IVRCL keeps stalling work owing to their own financial crunch. We have already imposed a penalty on them at the rate of 10 per cent of the contract amount."

Apart from delay by the contractor, short supply of sand has also hit work for nearly a month. "Supply of sand has completely stopped since February 9 owing to restrictions imposed on its mining in Bihar," said the engineer, who is working on the project. "Consequently, construction work on the centenary building is stalled for nearly a month now."

The plans for extension of Patna High Court were conceptualised in 2010, following acute shortage of courtrooms in the existing building. "The existing strength of judges at Patna High Court is 43 but there is not sufficient space in the existing building to accommodate all of them as we don't have sufficient judges' chambers," said Ravi Parmar, an advocate at the high court.

The new centenary building would accommodate 46 new courtrooms and 58 judges' chambers among other amenities, including conference room, judges' lounge, library and record hall. Chief minister Nitish Kumar laid the foundation stone for the building on February4, 2014. It is a (B+G+2) structure being developed across 1.5 acres utilising an estimated outlay of Rs 116 crore. "Work on construction of 50 per cent of the super-structure in block A and 90 per cent of block B has been completed," said the engineer. "Interior furnishing has also started in block B."

Sources claimed that on March 12, Modi would be shown a 20-minute laser show depicting the history of Patna High Court. Besides, a 20-minute documentary film will showcase the 100-year-long journey of the court using old photographs and other archival material. Sir Charles Hardinge of Penshurst, the late viceroy and governor general of India, had laid the foundation stone of the existing building of the high court on December 1, 1913. Upon completion of construction work, Viceroy Hardinge formally inaugurated the building on February 3, 1916. Sir Justice Edward Maynard Des Champs Chamier was the first Chief Justice of Patna High Court.

Institute

Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur will inaugurate a new Judicial Training Institute at Gai Ghat on March 12, sources said.

House annexe

Close to six years have passed since January 26, 2010, when Nitish laid the foundation stone for the ambitious Vidhan Sabha annexe building project. Despite being a brainchild of Nitish, the project has been stalled for a variety of snags ranging from engineering, environmental, administrative and financial.

The project includes construction of Vidhan Mandal building and four secretariat blocks. The building is now expected to be inaugurated by the end of this month.

Officials in the building construction department claimed that the super-structure was ready around a year ago and finishing touches are being given to the furnishing works.

"It is owing to poor financial condition of IVRCL that the work on the Vidhan Sabha annexe building got delayed by around four years," said a senior official in the building construction department. "However, the building is now almost ready. We expect to get it inaugurated by the last week of this month."