Halted by flyover, Old Mint facelift project to be revived

KOLKATA: The city's most prestigious heritage project, the old mint's rejuvenation on 60, Strand Road, had generated a lot of excitement when it was announced in September 2008. Now, three years later, not a brick has been moved. Finally, when the project was about to be disbanded, Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee reportedly intervened. A fresh bid would be floated to invite prospective developers.
The Old Silver Mint House, as this run-down huge structure was called by the British, resembles the Temple of Minerva, Athens.It started operations in 1824 and continued till 1971. Then, it fell into disuse and disrepair, till it was let out to the CRPF.
The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) prepared a report on the building's importance and its pitiable condition in 2007 and submitted it to the then governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi. A convinced Gandhi wrote to the then Union finance minister P Chidambaram as the structure was controlled by it. The Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited (SPMCIL), a wing of the union finance ministry, is the mint's guardian.
Chidambaram devised a Rs 200-crore restoration project under
the PPP model under the aegis of the Infrastructure Leasing and
Financial Services Limited (IL&FS). The main building was to be converted into a museum to house coins and seals from the Indus Valley Civilisation to the British era. The other two structures were to be converted into a research centre and a convention centre. A boutique hotel, with architecture in sync with the area was supposed to be built across the road, complete with shopping malls, cafeteria and speciality restaurants. The idea was to convert the run-down locality into a jazzy hangout zone.
A tender was floated and a consortium of two real estate majors US-based Real Estate Investment Trust (Reit) and local group, Eden were chosen. But trouble started soon after Chidambaram visited the city to announce the project. The KMDA planned a flyover from the Howrah Bridge to Vivekananda Road, which not only passed by the heritage structure, but also jutted at least eight metres into it.
Senior SPMCIL officials from Delhi repeatedly met the KMDA to "negotiate" the flyover design, so that the heritage project's aesthetics was not "compromised with".
However, the KMDA's plan remained unchanged. "It was a question of easing traffic snarls around Posta. A change in the design would have hindered the smooth vehicular flow from Howrah Bridge to
the flyover," said a senior official of the KMDA.
Questioning the project's financial viability, the consortium backed out and all hopes were lost. Intach, however, kept up the pressure with the ministry. "This would have been the city's first heritage project, revolving around urban regeneration. It would have earned revenue for its upkeep and also become a model for effective re-use of built heritage," said GM Kapur, state convener of Intach.
"The project hasn't taken off, but the decks are being cleared for a fresh tender," said Ajay Singh, SPMCIL spokesperson.