President Pranab Mukherjee will pay a visit to the Brookside heritage bungalow, one of the three houses where Nobel laureate and national poet Rabindranath Tagore had stayed during his visits here in the 1920s, officials said today.
Mukherjee will pay a floral tribute to the bard and then inspect the Tagore Art Gallery inside the bungalow after addressing the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly, both in the same premises, on October 21, they said.
The bungalow which has been in ruins and left unutilised for several years was forced to be renovated after the President was petitioned by concerned citizens of the state.
The President's official visit to the site has made it all the more important for the state government to undertake renovation works of the Bungalow, Arts and Culture Minister Clement Marak told PTI.
He said, the government believes that the renovated bungalow and President's visit to the site would boost tourism in the long run.
The state government has earmarked over Rs 70 lakh for the renovation works of the heritage bungalow and some of the works have been completed while some are under renovations, Director Arts and Culture, M W Nongbri said.
Last year, the Centre deputed Director of Raja Rammohan Roy Library Foundation Kolkata K K Banerjee to prepare a report for renovating historic sites associated with the Nobel laureate including the Brookside Bungalow.
Banerjee's report was submitted to the Union Ministry of Culture and recommended emergent renovation works keeping in mind the heritage tag the site has.
Mukherjee's office had earlier this year sought report from the state government on renovations of Tagore's bungalows in Shillong seeking "appropriate attention" in this regard.
The President's office was intimidated of the neglect in which the famous 'Brookside bungalow' was lying since the fall of 2010 by a city-based writer and researcher M Sherawat.
Tagore spent some time in Shillong during which he wrote some of this famous memoirs and the Government wants to contribute in memory to this great poet.
