Opinion
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Letters to the Editor
Netaji's birthplace
Sir, — Enter the birthplace of Subash Chandra Bose in a serpentine lane of Oriya Bazar at Cuttack and you will be shocked to see the sorry state of affairs of the two-storeyed house where the great leader was born on January 23, 1897. Dust gathers on the few rare photographs of Netaji and some of his framed hand-written letters lie unattended to in the room where he was born. A major portion of the boundary wall has collapsed and the rest is on the verge of falling. The building is leaking from all sides. The roof has caved in at many places. The walls are damp and the floor in some parts has stagnant pools of water. The woodwork in the doors and windows needs to be replaced.
Sometime ago, a grant of Rs. 5 lakhs under the MP's Local Area Development Fund was released to give a facelift to the building. But the State Government and the Cuttack Municipality are yet to decide where to start. In recent times, the State Government demanded a few crores from the Centre to establish a 100-bed hospital here. But the proposal gathers dust in official files.
In 1997, the Government announced that the building would be converted into a national memorial. The former Prime Ministers, Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral, and the present incumbent, Atal Behari Vajpayee, have promised time and again that the great patriot's birthplace would be converted into a monument. But nothing has happened so far.
The pace of building of the much-hyped Netaji Auditorium at the Ravenshaw Collegiate School _ where Netaji studied _ is at a snail's pace despite the release of a Rs. 37-lakh grant by the Government. The management of the 149-year-old premier institution demands its declaration as a national school but it is in a deplorable condition. Many students were lucky to escape when a portion of the roof collapsed two months ago. To restore a historic building to its original grandeur is probably easier than getting people to change their attitude towards how they perceive their heritage.
Asish Senapati,
Kendrapara, Orissa
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