HERITAGE BUILDING

Initiative to save age-old Haldibari building

COOCH BEHAR, March 16: Brahmananda Kesav Chandra Sen came to Haldibari by railway in February 1978. Cooch Behar town was not connected by railway till then. During their journey to Cooch Behar they had to cross Teesta and pass through Mekhliganj, Patgram, Mathabhanga and Rajarhat. The journey was related to the historic marriage of Maharaja Nripendra Narayan with the daughter of Kesav Chandra Sen. The Brahma Samaj got divided over this marriage but the modernisation of Cooch Behar started from then on.

A six-bedded medical dispensary came up at the place near the Haldibari railway station in 1904 where Sen and his associates had camped for taking rest in 1878. The beautiful building was built in the then European style of architecture. Earlier, Maharaja Nripendra Narayan had established an aided non-bedded dispensary at Haldibari in 1885.

Later, Prince Victor Memorial Library also came up at Haldibari. After Independence, a new hospital was established at Haldibari in 1955 and the old one left abandoned. Now, the large ground adjacent to the age-old building turned a grazing ground and almost all the remains of the decaying building are getting evaporated. It is now a den of antisocial persons.

A senior citizen of Haldibari, Mr Paritosh Chandra Roy alleged that a building established in 1904 was going to be totally destroyed but no one came forward to save it. All efforts gone to deaf ears, he exclaimed.

The Heritage Society of Cooch Behar took up the issue and appealed to the state forest minister Mr Ananta Roy, state food and supply minister Mr Paresh Chandra Adhikary and the chairman of Haldibari Municipality to take initiatives to consider the age-old building as a heritage one and protect it from being demolished. HSCB president Mr Dipen Chanda said they requested the authorities to make a garden at the ground adjacent to the dilapidated building, in memory of the great social reformer Kesav Chandra Sen. 

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