Saturday, Oct 05, 2013
Kolkata: For the first time in the history of Bengal, Kolkata is not the seat of power.
The seat of West Bengal administration on Saturday formally moved out of heritage Writers’ Building to the new 15-storey HRBC building across the Hooghly River in Howrah district.
After arriving at the new building, painted blue and white and named “Nabanna” (new crop of paddy), Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee unfurled the national flag.
Chief Secretary Sanjay Mitra, Home secretary Basudeb Banerjee and ministers were present among others during the inauguration. Eleven government departments (mostly under the Chief Minister) — CMO, Police Directorate, Home, Information and Cultural Affairs, Personnel and Administrative Reforms, Minority Affairs, Land and Land Reforms are housed in the new building beside Finance, Agriculture, Disaster Management and the Public works department.
PWD Minister Sudarshan Ghosh Dastidar has said that the renovation of Writers’ Buildings under direct supervision of the Chief Minister would be of international standard. “The idea is to turn the historic building into a modern working space keeping in mind its historic importance and hence no structural alteration is made,” Ghosh told Gulf News.
The building, which was conceived and set up during the tenure of the previous Left Front government, was to have housed a garment park; now instead it will be the new seat of power of the State government.
The shifting is done temporarily to facilitate renovation of the Writers’ Buildings constructed in 1706. The entire process of restructuring and renovating and restoring Writers’, which was constructed in the early 18 century, is estimated to cost the State Exchequer about Rs20 million (Dh1.2 million).
The Department of Architecture at two prominent institutions — Jadavpur University and Bengal Engineering and Science University — have been given the task of preparing a detailed report on the structure’s restoration.
By Archisman Dinda ?Correspondent
Gulf News 2013. All rights reserved.
