THE conservation work of the Old High Court Building, the city’s first National Heritage Monument, which was ‘progressing’ at snail’s pace for the past four years seems to have gained momentum with the top brass of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) finally waking up from slumber and posting Superintending Archaeologist Arun Mallick as the new In-Charge of ASI’s Nagpur Circle to expedite the task. The conservation work of more than 132-year-old ancient architectural marvel was hampered to a great extent due to alleged insouciant approach of the former In-charge of ASI’s Nagpur Circle Vijayakumar Somasekharan Nair and his team. The conservation work of other centrally-protected monuments in Vidarbha, including Markanda group of temples, too, was stalled due to alleged lackadaisical attitude of Nair. Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways and Navneet Rana, Lok Sabha member from Amravati, had also written to G Kishan Reddy, Minister of Culture, in this regard. The conservation work of the Old High Court Building had started after it was declared as the first centrally-protected monument in Nagpur on March 28, 2018 by the Union Ministry of Culture. In April 2020, one of the three porches of the Old High Court building facing south collapsed. The porch in the west facing the old Secretariat building is the main entrance to the building.

 

 

The second porch is in the North. The 16 ft x 16 ft rear porch facing the old National Fire Service College, which was in a dilapidated condition was detached from the main structure and it caved in. After ‘The Hitavada’ highlighted the incident, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court had suo-motu treated the news report as Public Interest Litigation (PIL) and sought reply from the ASI and other authorities concerned. Subsequently, the Government also sanctioned funds for the conservation work. Though the funds were released, the conservation work was hampered due to administrative apathy of the former ASI’s Nagpur Circle authorities. The two-storeyed Old High Court building built of bricks, stones, teak and Burmese wood representing Anglo-Indian or colonial architecture has thick brick walls with an arcade, verandah, arched wooden doors and Doric columns.

 

Superintending Archaeologist Arun Mallick, who recently took over as the In-Charge of ASI’s Nagpur Circle, performed ‘puja’ at newly reconstructed southern porch of the monument in the presence of Conservation Engineer Milind Angaitkar to resume and expedite the conservation work on Friday. Speaking to ‘The Hitavada,’ Mallick informed that the collapsed porch was reconstructed on scientific lines to bring back the structure’s past glory. “We are using the same cementing material like lime, etc for conservation of the monument. Sincere efforts will also be made to restart the conservation work at Markanda group of temples and other national heritage monuments in the region,” he added.