Born as office accommodation to the erstwhile East India Company staff in 1777, Writers' Building, for best part of its existence has been the seat of power, be it office of Lieutenant-governor of Bengal during British rule or that of West Bengal chief minister now.
After over two centuries' of service to the rulers of the country, historic Writers' Building, which was also the first three-storeyed structure of the city, is set to get a complete make-over by its current custodian Mamata Banerjee.
To carry out the renovation work, Chief minister's office (CMO) may temporarily be shifted out of the state secretariat in coming months. Benerjee, had expressed her displeasure over the untidy look of the government departments soon after assuming office in 2011 and described them as “ghugur basa” (den of corruption). In fact, the state secretariat went through a face-lift exercise with fresh painting and some temporary decoration with flowers, in May last year ahead of then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton's visit.
This time, chief minister has given in-principle approval to carry out the major renovation work. “The PWD department has been asked to give a detailed plan for the renovation work with the estimated cost for the same, within a months,” one of the official said. The government is likely to rope in external agency for the same following the submission of report.
Chief Minister had held a meeting on last Thursday with top government officials including chief secretary, home secretary, PWD secretary on this matter. In the meeting an initial power point presentation on the renovation work prepared by the PWD department was presented.The idea is to done away with numerous small cabins and cubicles of the building and replace them with spacious rooms equipped with all modern facilities.
In the renovated structure, Writers' Building, would only host 11 key government ministries like Home, Finance, Industry, Land. Currently, there are about 38 government department inside it. In fact the process has already been started as the fisheries department has already been shifted out of the building and four others like environment, animal resource development, paschimanchal unnayan and public enterprise are being shifted to the various government set ups across the city.The new-look Writers' Building also expected to have an auditorium and conference halls inside the building.
If the plan materialises, this will be first major renovation of the historic building in long time. Earlier in early 19th century structural changes like addition of 128ft-long balcony in front of the building, were made as the building was used to serve as the campus for Fort William College, which used to train writers in Oriental languages. Decades later, it embraced the familiar Greco–Roman look with the red surface of exposed brick and additional blocs were created at various points of time.
