New ED headquarters is ready, likely to be inaugurated soon
New Delhi, Jan 11: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) will now have a posh new headquarters in Delhi's Lutyens' zone, which is now ready to be occupied by the probe agency.
The inauguration of the new building can take place in the second week of January, may be on January 14, however, as of now there is no official confirmation.
According to sources, Prime Minister Narendra Modi can inaugurate the newly constructed building. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will also participate in the inauguration ceremony.
The ED is currently running its office from the fifth and sixth floor of Khan Market's Lok Nayak Bhawan. ED director also runs his office from this building.
Apart from this, the ED has two more offices in Delhi. One is at Jam Nagar, near India Gate where recently Bollywood Actress Aishwarya Rai was questioned. This office is called Intelligence Unit of the ED. Here former finance minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram were also quizzed.
The second office of the ED is at MTNL Building in front of Delhi's famous Ramlila Ground. Here Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez was quizzed several times. The MTNL building office is known as Delhi Zone office and looks after highly sensitive matter. One Special Director and two Joint Directors of the ED operate from here.
The new headquarters of the ED has been constructed on Vidut Lane which is close to Janpath. The construction began three years ago which has completed now. This building will be the most modern, equipped with all the facilities.
Now all the three offices of the ED will merge and will start functioning from newly constructed headquarters. It will save the time of the agencies as in most of the cases teams have to rush to the other building for work.
Former ED director Karnail Singh had written to Directorate of Revenue Intelligent (DRI) that the department needs a new headquarters. After his retirement, ED director Sanjay Kumar Mishra laid the foundation stone of the building. The Covid crisis delayed the construction, otherwise it would have been completed much earlier.