Raisina Hills lit up by its oldest employee,16 million colours spellbind north and south block

Mr Mahipal Singh, the oldest employee of the government has illuminated the two iconic building of the Raisina Hills-North block and the south block with an extensive range of themes with 16 million colour combinations.

"He is from Uttarakhand and has served the government for 42 years. He switched on the lights," a senior ministry explained. 

"The system is capable of providing both volume and focus lighting to highlight the architectural features of the historical buildings, a fine blend of the traditional Indian and British architecture," he added.

In next the three months, the lights of the Rashtrapati Bhavan will start functioning.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi along Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Defence minister Nirmala Sithraman attended the inauguration of the latest lighting system.

In a bid to reduce the electrical load of the lighting system, the latest system is enabled with dimming feature. The colours of light will change in every few seconds between 7 pm and 5 am.

Till now, only at Independence and Republic days these buildings brightened up but with static light. This system covers an area of 16,750 square metres.

The new dynamic facade lighting, which will cover an area of 21,450 square metres, will captivating the visitors and able to grab the attention of the people between 8 pm to 9 pm.

This new dynamic lighting system will help in saving some amount of money as compared to an old static system, around Rs 86.40 lakh will save.

Not only this, you will be amazed by knowing the life of the new LED fitting which is expected to be an over one lakh burning hours which is nearly equal to 25 years as against only 10,000 burning hours for the existing system.

The energy consumption of the new system will cost Rs. 8.40 lakh per year, the official said, adding it would be "much less" as compared to the conventional lighting.

The initial investment of Rs. 15.40 crore for the new system will be recovered in six to seven years as against the costs being incurred every year now, the official said. 

Raisina Hills will join the league of other historical sites such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris.