Members of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s heritage conservation committee visited the Jorasanko Thakurbari on Tuesday to inspect a portion of the building that Calcutta High Court has asked the civic body to restore after clearing it of encroachments.
Two rooms on the ground floor of the building, below the celebrated Dakshiner Baranda (the southern balcony), have been changed and were encroached on, said an official of the KMC.
A public interest litigation was filed in the high court alleging that the two rooms had been converted for use by the West Bengal Trinamul Shiksha Bandhu Samiti, the Trinamul union of non-teaching employees of Rabindra Bharati University, which is partially housed at Tagore’s family home.
“We found that the floor has been overlaid with marble slabs, raising its height. This is not compatible with other parts of the structure,” said a KMC official.
A member of the heritage conservation committee said they would prepare a report based on what they saw.
A room whose floor has been overlaid with marble slabs.
Bishwarup Dutta
The KMC official said the committee had to identify the changes and suggest remedial measures.
The bench of Chief Justice Prakash Shrivastava and Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj had in an order last month asked the KMC to remove encroachments and restore the structure.
The order said: “Once it is found that illegal encroachment has been done on a part of the building of the University, the said encroachment is required to be removed.”
The order also stated that “it is the responsibility of the Heritage Conservation Committee/concerned department of the Corporation in coordination with the police and the University Authorities to ensure that the heritage building is conserved and restored”.
The KMC official said they would have to file a compliance report in the high court before the next hearing, scheduled for December 19.
“The committee members will meet and decide what measures have to be taken to restore the two rooms. The rooms are under the university’s control. They opened the locks for the inspection and locked the rooms after the inspection was over,” the official said.
Joransanko Thakurbari is a Grade I heritage building, according to the Graded List of Heritage Buildings of the KMC.
No external change is permissible in a Grade I heritage building. “Use of the building should also be compatible with the category of the heritage building,” the list mentions.
The KMC official said that apart from the two rooms, many parts of the building required better maintenance.
The Jorasanko Thakurbari was built in 1784. It is where Rabindranath Tagore was born and breathed his last.
