Author: Statesman News Service
Publication: The Statesman
Date: January 23, 2003
The stage is set for converting
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's birthplace, Janakinath Bhavan, into a museum
with the shifting of the maternity home functioning there for nearly 50
years. The chief minister will inaugurate a building to house the maternity
home tomorrow on the occasion of Netaji's 106th birth anniversary.
With the shifting of the maternity
home, the Netaji Birthplace Museum Trust will formally take over control
of the more than 125-year-old mansion from the Netaji Seva Sadan Trust
Board. The Centre had sanctioned Rs 1.5 crore for the purpose and half
of the amount has been given to the Museum Trust.
The chief minister is the ex-officio
president, the state culture minister is the ex-officio vice-president
and the superintendent of the state archaeology department is the ex-officio
secretary of the Trust. It has 10 other members including representatives
from the departments of culture, tourism and finance at the Centre and
local MPs and MLAs. As part of the museum project, efforts are on to prepare
a masterplan with the assistance of Intach and the National Institute of
Design, Ahmedabad, and landscaping with the help of local experts.
The Trust had also sought the expertise
of Indian Conservation Institute and Orissa Art Conservation Centre for
chemical treatment of the existing artefacts connected with Netaji's family.
An archive on Netaji also forms part of the memorial project.
The Trust had initiated the process
for collecting documents connected with Netaji's life from the National
Archives and other archives on Netaji in different parts of the country.
The renovation work had been handed
over to the state archaeology department and the work would be completed
within three years in three phases.
The ancestral house of Netaji had
been lying in a dilapidated condition for decades before the decision was
taken to turn it into a memorial. Netaji's father Janakinath Bose had migrated
to Cuttack in 1885 and taken up the profession of a lawyer.
Later as one of the most successful
men at the Cuttack Bar, he had received the two-storeyed house with 23
rooms at Oriya Bazar area of the city as his fees from the mahanta of Deogiri.
Netaji had spent the first 16 years
of his life in this house before he went to Kolkata to join the Presidency
college. His aunt Bibhabati Bose had handed over the land along with the
building to the state government in 1954. Subsequently, Netaji Seva Sadan
Trust Board with the Orissa chief minister as ex-officio president was
handed over the building to function as a maternity home.