Work on the Rs 64 crore hospital building began in March this year and will be completed in time for Asvini's golden jubilee celebrations in 2001. The hospital will have a preview of the new building complex when its entire dental centre will shift in here by the year-end. The 14 heritage buildings in the hospital premises have been left untouched and will intime house the hospital's administrative offices, Mukherjee said. Another reason they couldn't be tampered with was that some of the hospital buildings on the Colaba seafront are used by ships to fix their location as they enter Mumbai harbour.

Care has been taken to ensure the new buildings merge with the historic buildings. ``The external facade of these buildings will merge with the old British buildings and will not look like a foreign component,'' Mukherjee said. The Asvini modernisation project was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs in 1992 and began this year after authorities had to wade through clearances from BMC, BEST and okays from heritage authorities and CRZ notifications.