Accord heritage status to iconic Bidhan Villah

After having been quite aware for some time  about the present status of the Bidhan Villah as it is  called the Circuit House Shillong at Laban, Kench’s Trace, I simply fail to comprehend if at all the said century old historic building built by Dr Bidhan Chandra Ray former Chief Minister of West Bengal an eminent far sighted  personality in the realm of health, industry and other fields of all-round  human development in the society, is in the immediate or  near future plan of demolition by the Public  Works Department  of the state government of Meghalaya due to its administrative reason. I had an opportunity or two during the past years to visit this highly impressive and  well maintained Bidhan Bhavan or the  state government’s Circuit House, Shillong. On visiting this beautifully land scaped and  magnificent century old structure I asked myself if it qualifies for being tagged with heritage status on consideration of the building’s  age, architectural  integrity, aesthetic beauty, contextual value and historical or associative  significance being the ingradients of defining heritage  which are virtually and practically embedded in this building. Visit to this House  by Nobel Laureate Tagore, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and other luminaries during those days certainly add value to its getting the state  heritage tag besides installing a befitting bust of Dr BC Ray and a plaque in front of this sprawling historic building without even  demolition if at all planned  by the state government. In other way, the scheme lke tourism might generate some more revenue to the government exchequer if robustly publicised the importance of this  preserved  Circuit House with its background history associated with Dr BC  Ray’s achievement of introducing the hydro electric power for the Shillong region. I therefore place my submission before the Hon’ble Chief Minister, Meghalaya, for kind consideration of  preservation and heritage status of this iconic Bidhan Villah.

Yours etc …

Arun Kumar Baksi,

Kolkata