Kolkata Municipal Corporation team takes stock of RBU constructions

Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) heritage committee members on Tuesday inspected Rabindra Bharati University’s Jorasanko campus after the Calcutta High Court passed an order on November 21 to remove illegal encroachments and constructions on the campus. The committee members also visited the RBU’s other campus on B T Road during the day.

According to a source in the KMC heritage committee, in presence of the RBU officials, the KMC representatives checked the condition of two rooms at Jorasanko Thakurbari where West Bengal Siksha Bandhu Samiti had its union office.

The civic official said some anomalies regarding the floors of the rooms and the nature of construction materials used were brought to the notice of the RBU authorities. According to KMC sources, the team also noted encroachments on which a report will be submitted to the HC during next hearing.

According to a civic source, the civic body’s heritage committee members took up the matter after having a meeting with the buildings department after the order was passed by the Calcutta High Court on November 21.

The Calcutta High Court directed the KMC to conserve and restore Rabindra Bharati University’s heritage buildings and asked KMC’s heritage committee to ensure removal of all encroachments, including unauthorized constructions, in three weeks. The HC will hear the matter on December 19. Before the deadline KMC took an initiative to comply with the order. The court will hear the matter on December 19.

A division bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj passed the orders while hearing PILs, which alleged that structures at Emerald Bower and Malancha gallery on RBU’s BT Road campus and two rooms on Jorasanko campus, had been tampered with. Among the rooms mentioned in the PIL at Jorasanko Thakurbari is one in which Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay had spoken to each other for the first time. A PIL was filed by Salt Lake’s Swadesh Majumdar against tampering of the heritage construction.

VC Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury said, “The construction was done without informing the university. So, we will do the needful in compliance with directives given by HC.” West Bengal Siksha Bandhu Samiti’s RBU chapter president Subodh Dutta Choudhury said, “I don’t know about the inspection as l am suspended. But I can say we had not constructed anything there. We have only changed the colour which was red during Left regime.”