CU buildings to get a makeover

The Calcutta University has planned for a makeover for all the buildings in its main campus at College Street for the proper conservation of its heritage value. The renovation and makeover work has been assigned to the state Public Works Department, which is consulting the West Bengal Heritage Commission (WBHC) for carrying it out. Partha Ranjan Das, Heritage conservation architect of West Bengal Heritage Commission is the supervisor of the whole project. Sonali Chakravarti Bannerjee, Vice Chancellor of Calcutta University said, "The main purpose of preservation of heritage is to renovate the buildings in a way so that they maintain the look it had during its inception. Temporary constructions have come up inside the buildings here and there from time to time which does not go with the heritage. We are removing all encroachments that are deterrent to the heritage". Four buildings of the campus - Asutosh Building, Darbhanga Building, Centenary Building, and the Hardinge Building have already undergone the makeover process. Some of the oldest buildings in the campus are the Darbhanga Building established in 1912 and the Asutosh Building which opened in 1926, among others. The first round of the project was to survey the buildings and examine its strength and weaknesses and it has been already done. The Darbhanga building is currently in a weak condition and requires proper renovation works, due to which many old types of furniture, papers which were dumped at the top floor of the building were discarded. Kanakendu Sinha, superintending engineer of the state PWD said, “Most of these things being very old hardly had any value and were highly risky in terms of fire vulnerability too. All these things were brought down to reduce the load at the top before taking up the work. The university authorities had provided us with maps, drawings and similar material of the inception days which have helped us immensely in the execution of the work”. The Vice Chancellor also informed that they intend to soon renovate CU’s Rajabazar Science Campus as well.