Washington: A row has erupted after the US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor decided to cancel a planned upgrade and expansion of the American Embassy in New Delhi due to expenses.
The renovation, which had an estimated cost of about $874 million in 2021, was one of the largest projects undertaken by the US anywhere in the world, reported HT.
US Ambassador Sergio Gor, in an interview to The New York Times, had said the project’s cost had increased to $1.2 billion and it is likely to be completed by 2036.
A spokesman said the decision to cancel the expansion was taken in 2025.
But former senior US officials and representatives in the Capitol Hill expressed dismay to HT. The project, represented a long-overdue upgrade to an ageing embassy first built in the 1950s, they opined. It was cancelled midway without apparent regard for the security implications of the decision, they claimed.
“Over time, embassies need upgrades for a variety of reasons. For example, security requirements have changed dramatically since the time that the Embassy in New Delhi was constructed, which I understand was around 1960. That embassy is no longer in compliance with today’s guidelines and has many other obsolete features,” a former official told HT.