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Rs 110-million project for preserving Netaji's house

The Orissa government has prepared an ambitious Rs 110 million project to convert Netaji Subas Chandra Bose's ancestral house in Cuttack into a national monument and build a multi-storied modern hospital within its precinct in his memory.

Besides complete renovation of the nearly 150-year-old double-storied 'L' type building, a 100-bed maternity and child hospital, the first of its kind in the state, will also come up.

The ancestral home, Janakinath Bhavan, where Netaji was born 101 years ago, and spent his entire childhood, is virtually 'unsafe' and needed immediate repair.

The Bhavan, which stands on a sprawling three-acre land in Oriya Bazaar, is degenerating with every passing day, allegedly due to the Central and Orissa governments apathetic attitude.

Such was the apathy that a voluntary organisation, Netaji Subhas Smriti Parishad, recently filed a public interest litigation in the Orissa high court seeking a direction to the government to notify Netaji's birth place and house as a national monument.

A two judge bench comprising Chief Justice S N Phukan and Justice P K Tripathy, in response, has issued notices to the Union government and Orissa Chief Minister J B Patnaik, who is president of the Netaji Sewa Sadan Trust Board (the board manages the Bhavan with the income from a small charitable maternity hospital it runs).

NSSTB president Srikanta Panda said the Bhavan and the adjacent land was donated to the trust on condition that it would take steps to preserve room number 23 where Netaji was born on January 23, 1897. But with the minimal income from the hospital, the irregular state government grant of Rs 15,000 and the Cuttack municipality's Rs 5,000, it was impossible to maintain the building.

As a result, a number of cracks have developed in the building and water is leaking in through numerous places. Besides, worms have eaten the doors and windows, and the roof is virtually crumbling.

Nearly eight years ago, the state public works department had recommended the immediate rebuilding of the Bhavan's roof. However, only one wing could be done with the special Rs 100,000 grant which the state government gave.

"The roof on the other portion which houses room number 23 might collapse unless it is replaced immediately," Panda said, "Every year we are approaching the public works department and the municipality to help maintain the house. But except whitewashing and minor repairs on the eve of every birth anniversary, no concrete steps have been taken about it."

The Trust's hospital staff alleged that the state government had stopped its annual grant of Rs 18,000 without any reason. The hospital had been receiving the grant from 1993.

"The situation has become so bad," they said, "that the staff at the Bhavan's family welfare centre moved the high court for non-payment of their salary for the last four years."

The employees also alleged that the building has now turned into a den of anti-socials and miscreants.

"Though a first information report was lodged with the police, no one has been arrested yet," they said.

Meanwhile, former Union minister and Netaji Jayanti Committee chairman Bhupendra Mishra (he was Netaji's associate) said it would be a real tribute to the hero if the Indian government renamed the Andaman and Nicobar islands as Sahid and Swaraj as declared by Subhas Bose in 1943 during his visit to Port Blair.

Like his ancestral home, the 177-year-old Ravenshaw Collegiate School, Netaji's alma mater, has also been neglected.

Bose, who started his schooling at the age of seven in the Baptist Mission School, switched over to Ravenshaw Collegiate in January 1909. He studied there from class IV till he completed his matriculation in 1913 and left for higher studies to Calcutta.

Ravenshsaw Collegiate headmaster R N Mohanty said the institution, which was built by the Britishers, was now in a very pathetic state. In fact, quite a few buildings in the school have been declared unsafe.

He said a developmental plan for the school was drawn up last year on Netaji's birth centenary. Rajya Sabha member Sarada Mohanty had contributed Rs 5.2 million from his fund. Another Rs 1.5 million was sanctioned by the state government.

"But the public works department stopped work in August last year after spending just Rs 100,000 on a Rs 300 million project," Mohanty alleged.

He urged the chief minister to take steps to declare the institution as a 'national school' and order its immediate repair and development.

Meanwhile, Madhya Bharat Azad Hind Sangathan president Vishwa Bandhu Tiwari and the Delhi Bharat Dal have called for removing Netaji's name from the list of war criminals.

The call came on January 23, Netaji's 101st birth anniversary. The list had been prepared at the instance of the erstwhile British rulers.

Tiwari said the government, despite repeated requests from Indian National Army veterans, had done nothing towards the matter. This was an insult to the 'illustrious son of India.'

The organisations also demanded an investigation into Netaji's mysterious disappearance after the second World War. There were reports that he had been sighted in the then Soviet Union.

An investigation could reveal the truth, Tiwari said.

UNI

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