Soon, swanky office building at Berhampore to promote heritage & culture of Murshidabad

Kolkata: A state-of-the-art office building that may also house a museum and exhibition centre is coming up at Berhampore in Murshidabad to promote the heritage of the area.

The initiative has been taken up by the Information and Cultural Affairs department of the state

government. This is a part of the project taken up by the department to create infrastructures in districts to promote culture and heritage of the areas.

At present, there are offices of the department in all districts. After the Mamata Banerjee-government took office, initiatives were taken to upgrade the existing infrastructure. Decision was also taken to set up office buildings at the places where there is no better infrastructure of the department.

Along with other places, it was also decided to construct a building at Behrampore where there are plans also to set up an exhibition centre and a museum.

Sources in the state secretariat said if everything goes as planned, the building will come up on a plot of around 15 cottah land adjacent to Rabindra Sadan at Berhampore.

The state government had invited designs from different consultants. Initially, around 13 of them had submitted the designs prepared by them. Out of the 13, designs of three consultants have been shortlisted who gave a presentation on their designs on

Monday before the senior officials in the state secretariat. If everything goes as

planned, one out of these three designs will be finalised based on which the building may come up.

It was learnt that the state Public Works Department (PWD) will also be a part of the project as it is an expert authority to assess the viability of the designs prepared by the consultants.

Murshidabad is a historically rich district with monuments like Hazarduari. According to a senior official in Nabanna, at present,

the state government is giving stress on cultural and heritage tourism. So setting up of the infrastructure at Berhampore will also be helpful in this regard as well.