<div><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu today laid the foundation stone of a Rs. 46 crore housing complex for Rajya Sabha employees at R K Puram in New Delhi. </span></div><br />''The land was allotted for the project as early as in 2003. <br />''<br />''In his address, Mr Naidu expressed concern over the delay in the project saying the long period of 17 years taken for launching the housing project resulted in avoidable costs for the Rajya Sabha Secretariat. <br />''<br />''He also referred to the social-economic-legal-administrative cobwebs that resulted in non-utilisation of the precious land resource and the several rounds of meetings he had held over the last two years with various officials to remove the hurdles in the way of utilisation of the land.<br />'' <br />''Mr Naidu pointed out that if the 8,700 square metres of land allotted for the Rajya Sabha Secretariat in 2003 was put to use in time, the secretariat could have benefitted significantly in the form of house rent allowance, besides recovering substantial portion of the investment in the housing project by now.<br />'' <br />''Referring to the huge annual rent of 30 crore being paid by the secretariat for locating RSTV in the NDMC Complex, he said relocation of the channel to R K Puram would have also benefitted substantially.<br />'' <br />''<span style="color: #222222;">Noting that provisioning of housing close to work place motivates employees to give their best, Mr Naidu expressed concern over inadequate housing facility for employees of the Rajya Sabha Secretariat given their long and arduous working hours, particularly, when the House is in session.</span><br />