New Delhi, Apr 24 (PTI) Crumbled ceilings, faded furniture, damp chambers and moth-eaten souvenirs rotting in cabinets, the old office space of the erstwhile Delhi mayor housed in the historic Town Hall building is in shambles.
The Town Hall, a nearly 160-year-old mansion of the Victorian era in old Delhi, was the seat of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) from its inception in 1958 till 2009, and from April 2010, the headquarters was formally shifted to the swanky and towering Civic Centre complex in front of the New Delhi railway station.
A prominent board with ‘Mahapaur’ (Hindi for mayor) labelled in white on it against a blue background still stands mounted above a wooden door that leads to the old office space, whose stature and prestige earlier ranked among the higher echelons of the power structure in the city.
However, the current condition of the old mayoral workspace belies the aura that a Delhi mayor once enjoyed through the high office.
Inside the office, debris lay deposited on the floor with panels which have come off the wall. The chamber is all dark and dingy now and souvenirs gifted by other cities in India and abroad, rot behind faded glass cabinets, covered in a thick layer of dust.
A replica of the 18th century monument Golghar gifted by the Patna Municipal Corporation, a metallic replica of the Charminar of Hyderabad and a souvenir marking the flight of Rakesh Sharma along with two cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz T-11 on April 3, 1984, are among the items decaying in the cabinets.
Sharma became the first Indian to fly into space with that mission.
However, the office space and chambers of the municipal commissioner are in a fairly maintained condition.
The erstwhile unified MCD was trifurcated in 2011 into the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC), and the old office of the mayor and the municipal commissioner at the Town Hall have been lying vacant since 2010.
Former North Delhi mayor Jai Prakash said, “Some meetings used to be held earlier, in a symbolic nod to the historical value of the building where the civic administration of the city had been housed for over a century, starting with the Delhi Municipality and then the MCD in 1958.” “For about three years now, no meeting has been held and rooms used as office spaces earlier are closed. So the condition is bound to deteriorate. But, we will look into it,” he said.
The Town Hall, the construction of which was completed in 1866, was earlier called the Delhi Institute or the Lawrence Institute and it is still considered one of the most iconic buildings of the city.
A heritage renewal project for the over 150-year-old building which has seen years of neglect, has been planned by the NDMC for the past several years, but it has not started yet.
Just before demitting office in 2021, in the middle of the Covid pandemic, Prakash had said that the NDMC had issued tenders for a private group to take up the Town Hall on a 33-year lease to run it as a heritage hotel.
This was done to ensure the maintenance of the structure as well as bring revenues to the corporation, he said.
“However, not a single party came forward. So the plan could not be taken forward. Now, anything concrete on the Town Hall can be planned only after the civic polls as the whole set up will change after reunification,” a civic official said.
Prakash, a senior BJP leader, who has also been the chairman of the standing committee of the NDMC, hopes that the reunification of the three existing corporations into a single civic body will “improve the financial situation” and hopefully the Town Hall would also eventually get a new lease of life.
President Ram Nath Kovind on April 18 had given his assent to the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which seeks to unify the three civic bodies in the national capital.
The legislation was approved by Lok Sabha on March 30 and by Rajya Sabha on April 5.
A civic staff member at the Town Hall lamented the poor upkeep of the grand building, which also has sprawling gardens on both sides, an old library and ancillary buildings which housed the old municipal press and dispensary.
A statue of Queen Victoria was earlier placed in the lawns facing the Chandni Chowk street, which was later removed, and after Independence, a statue of freedom fighter Swami Shradhanand was erected in its place.
“Sometimes, film crew come here for shooting, otherwise hardly anyone comes to the Town Hall, except some reserarchers or heritage lovers when they come to see old Delhi. MCD is going to become one again, we hope the fate of the Town Hall would also change after that,” the staff member said, on the condition of anonymity.
Delhi-based historian and author Swapna Liddle described the Town Hall as a “valuable heritage of Delhi and of the country” and suggested that it be used as a “cultural hub, with a small-scale hotel, cafes, library and a museum on the history of Shahjehanabad”.
“Even if a small cafe is opened in a portion of the Town Hall, it will generate a great deal of excitement among people and the municipal corporation can earn revenues by making entry ticketed. NDMC had earlier roped in INTACH as a consultant for the heritage hotel-cum-museum project, but it didn’t take off,” said Liddle, the former Delhi Chapter convener of INTACH.
The author of “Chandni Chowk: The Mughal City of Old Delhi” recalled a Gothic-design clock tower that existed in front of of the Town Hall. While the clock tower was demolished soon after Independence, the area is still called ‘Ghantaghar’.
“Town Hall can become a great place of storytelling while offering new cultural avenues to people and a mode of generating revenues for the corporation, if only the policymakers had a holistic vision for heritage,” she said. PTI KND ANB RCJ
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