Tripura's bamboo flooring, Mirzapur carpets, customised motifs for RS, LS: A glance at India's new Parliament building

India's new Parliament are set to feature premium hand-knotted carpets weaved laboriously by as many as 900 artisans from Uttar Pradesh for a whopping "10 lakh man-hours". Set to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the building will showcase exquisite motifs of the national bird peacock and national flower lotus in the carpets of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, respectively, a PTI report said.

In line with the 'Made in India' initiative, different kinds of materials like teak wood from Nagpur and red and white sandstone from Rajasthan's Sarmathura have been used in the construction of the Parliament floor. Apart from that, carpets from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh and stone carvings from Rajasthan have also been used.

Further, red granite from Lakha near Ajmer and white marble from Ambaji of Rajasthan have also been used in the flooring.


Epitome bamboo wood flooring was supplied by Mutha Industries of Bodhjungnagar, Tripura.

Obeetee Carpets, the over-100-year-old Indian company behind the project, said weavers crafted more than 150 carpets each for Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha "before stitching them into a single carpet in the form of a semi-circle to sync with the architecture of each of the Houses spread across 35,000 square feet of area".

"The weavers had to craft the carpets for halls measuring up to 17,500 square feet each. This posed a significant challenge for the design team, as they had to meticulously craft the carpet in separate pieces and seamlessly join them together, ensuring that the creative mastery of the weavers blended harmoniously to create a unified carpet that can sustain heavy footfall," Rudra Chatterjee, Chairman of Obeetee Carpets, said.

While the colours used in Rajya Sabha has been primarily inspired by the shade of kokum red, the look of Lok Sabha is based on Indian agave green with inspirations from the plumes of the Indian peacock.

Laying emphasis on the intricacies of the workmanship, he said that as many as "120 knots per square inch" were woven to create the carpets, totalling "over 600 million knots".

The weavers, hailing from Uttar Pradesh's Bhadohi and Mirzapur districts, have spent a whopping "10 lakh man-hours" to carpet the Upper and Lower Houses of the new Parliament building.

"We began the project in 2020 right in the middle of the pandemic. The weaving process started by September 2021, was over by May, 2022, and the installation commenced in November 2022. Crafting each carpet with a high density of 120 knots per square inch took approximately seven months," Chatterjee said.

The new Parliament building is three times bigger than the old Parliament building covering a 64,500 sq km area and accommodating 888 people.

The old parliament building was circular in shape while the new building is triangular. There were 543 seats in the Lok Sabha in the old building. 888 people can sit together in Lok Sabha in the new building, reports said.

Rajya Sabha had 250 seats in the old parliament building. And the number of Rajya Sabha seats in the new building is increasing to 384. The new Lok Sabha hall has been designed on the theme of the national bird peacock. And the design of the Rajya Sabha chamber has been prepared on the theme of the national flower lotus.

(With PTI and ANI inputs)