Howrah house with Sarat Chandra connect all set for restoration

KOLKATA: The crumbling heritage building on Howrah’s 4, Nityadhan Mukherjee Road, which had served as the office of novelist Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay when he was president of the Howrah district branch of Indian National Congress between 1921 and 1936, will be restored. On Monday, the building’s owner met artist Shuvaprasanna, the chairman of the West Bengal Heritage Commission, to verbally agree to the restoration under the commission’s supervision.
This structure, which is more than 100 years old and built on four cottahs, had originally belonged to Adhornath Chattopadhyay. According to Nirmal Ghoshal, secretary of the Shibnath Banerjee Labour Institute, which has an office in that building, “Adhornath offered Saratchandra the use of the building to open an office of the Howrah unit of Bangiya Pradeshik Congress Committee there.” The building had hosted the likes of Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru.
In 2013, a PIL was filed at the Calcutta High Court seeking permission to repair this house. “Permission was granted and work had started. However in 2014, the project was abandoned because of controversy,” said Himansu Halder, a member of Shibnath Banerjee Labour Institute.
Later on, a portion of the building collapsed and the roof developed cracks. The original staircase collapsed years ago. “Now we can’t go to the first floor. The Monglahaat draws a crowd in front of the building and a collapse will put a lot of lives at risk,” Ghoshal added.
Shuvaprasanna said, “When someone buys a property that is later declared a heritage building, the commission can only request the owner to help with the conservation. We have taken a resolution that this house will be restored by the owner, who will take care of the cost. The work will happen under the commission’s supervision. We will not object to their plans of utilising the rest of the property commercially.”
Sandip Saha, director of Chowdhary Exports Private Limited that currently owns the property, is keen to do his bit. “We are local residents of Howrah. Had we known that this house would be declared a heritage building, we wouldn’t have bought it,” Saha said, adding that he will discuss the proposal with the existing tenants of the house.