HERITAGE BUILDING

Who will bell the cat ?

 

The age-old building that housed the office of the district information and cultural affairs department at Sunity Road in Cooch Behar is lying in a dilapidated condition for a long. The employees have to work here with anxiety. The plasters of the roof dropped off several times but the workers are lucky enough that no one had to suffer from injury by those flying chunks.

 

The office of the district information and cultural affairs department is situated in a very old building. It has every right to be considered as a heritage one in this heritage town as it was erected in the regime of the Maharajas of Cooch Behar. Marks of decay are there everywhere. Electrical wires and switchboards are hanging from its colourless shabby rough walls. Flourishing parasitic plants made the roofs and outer corners of the building green. Visitors feel panicky in using the shaky narrow wooden staircase to go to the first floor. An uncared jungle grew up in front of this 'heritage building'.

 

The office room of the district information and cultural officer (DICO) is on the first floor. It is also a pale one. The plasters of the roof above the table of the officer dropped off at many places and the iron rods came out to greet the visitors with ugly smile. This building has almost no difference with any haunted house.

 

The information and cultural affairs department is under the portfolio of chief minister Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee but his office in Cooch Behar reflects nothing like his clean attire. The workers are also aggrieved.

 

It was learnt that proposals were submitted several times in the past to acquire the building marking it as a heritage one. But no government official took the initiative to acquire it. Reliable sources said the building and the strip of land on which it is standing beside Sunity Road changed the ownership recently. Soon after removal of the office from this building it may be dismantled to erect a multi-storeyed commercial complex.

 

Presently, the office needs at least eight rooms for sections like audio-visual unit, technical section, reading room and establishment section including a room for the officer. The office needs a garage too.

 

When asked, Dipen Bhattacharjee, the operator of the audio-visual unit, said, they always have to work with fear of dropping of roof chunks on their heads. In the event of earthquake or heavy downpour the building may cause havoc to all the employees engaged in this office, he opined.

 

Another staff said the office was shifted to this building in 1980 or earlier. Proposals were placed with higher authorities several times to shift the office in a specious building leaving this dilapidated rented one but all those gone to deaf ears. There is no healthy atmosphere in the existing office, he complained.

 

The district information and cultural officer, Cooch Behar, Tapan Kumar Sarkar said he already discussed the condition of the office building with the district magistrate Rajesh Kumar Sinha. He hoped that very soon they might get accommodation inside the old collectorate building on the west bank of Sagardighi.

 

But who will think about the fate of this 'heritage building'?