Universal construction company

About three months ago as we sat down for lunch we heard the tell-tale noise of tractors go past our house. Used to enhanced real estate activity everywhere we would not have paid them much heed if it was not for the accompanying noise of unloading not too far from our house. After lunch, we went to investigate and saw construction debris being dumped behind a neighbour’s house about 200 metres from ours.

On asking where the rubbish was coming from, an underage tractor driver said, the rubble was from some of the old buildings being demolished at Visva Bharati University. My husband contacted the university’s estate department and the officer in charge confirmed the news. The reason being, construction of a road parallel to the train track, right behind our house. The road if built could hardly be a stretch of a kilometer.

We sent an RTI query to the university asking, one, whether an environment impact assessment had been undertaken for such a road and, two, who would benefit from the proposed road. The answer we got after prodding the first appellate authority was, Visva Bharati proposed a road along the western side of the railway line during 2006-08. Preliminary survey was done by the PWD and letters were sent to the Railways and other organisations. Regarding query no 2, the University had another cryptic answer: To divert traffic from the campus. 

Divert traffic over just one km? But lately, Visva Bharati’s propensity to build buildings and roads has been inversely proportional to the merit of its academic achievements. 

Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be excelling in construction too, an activity that the university undertakes with a lot of enthusiasm. Recently, the Bangladesh government gave the varsity Rs 25 crore to build a Bangladesh Bhavana to house a library, an auditorium and seminar rooms to facilitate cultural exchange between the two  Banglas. The building was inaugurated in May 2018 by Bangladesh Prime Minster Sheikh Haseena and our Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

What was built, however, resembled a seven star resort (it would fit better in Gurugram) with so many lights in and around that it would warm the heart of any development enthusiast. Not at all in the tradition of Tagore’s stress on nature. This year, on July 1, a programme commemorating the Bangladeshi national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam was to be organised at the Bhavana. But days before the programme, according to a press report, 19 of the 44,000sq ft structure’s 50 air conditioners were not working. And the one year warranties had just lapsed in May.

So the venue had to be shifted to a small auditorium in the University. What I thought took the cake was the university’s inability to fix the ACs in order to be able to host an important programme. 

The Bangladesh government has given the University a corpus of Rs 10 crore to maintain the building but since the interest on that had not started to kick in, there were no funds to fix the ACs.

If this does not enhance cultural exchange between neighbours you wonder what will.