Mayor convenes meet to break impasse over cannon digging work

kolkata: With the Railways authority allegedly objecting to the digging work near its office on Strand Road to extract what is probably a British-era cannon, a meeting will be convened on Monday with Mayor Firhad Hakim chairing it in a bid to chalk out a solution.

It is learnt that the digging work was initiated on Thursday to extract the cannon, a portion of which used to jut out of the pavement on Strand Road. The Administrator General and Official Trustee of West Bengal, Biplab Roy is learnt to have said the digging work was being carried out with due permission from the Mayor. The work was being carried out in the presence of the police, CESC officials and an expert on the history of cannons, Amitabha Karkun.

However, the digging work had to be stopped following an objection from the Railways authorities who reached the spot with the request. Their bone of contention, as learnt, was that the digging work near their Fairlie Place office premises may affect the foundation of the old office building.

Sources said though Roy tried to convince them that the work was being carried out with due permission from the Mayor, the Railway authorities remained unmoved and suggested that their permission should also have been taken before starting the digging work. It is learnt that the Railways authority has also demanded an inspection of the working site after the meeting on Monday which will take place in the presence of the Mayor. Sources added that the question of taking permission from Railways does not arise because the place which is being dug up is not a property of the Railways.

It is learnt that the cannon, once extracted, will be examined carefully to determine its history and age. It is estimated that it could be of a British make. It was only last year that the Indian Navy recovered two British-era cannons while clearing a piece of land on the left bank of the Hooghly.

These cannons were refurbished, painted and mounted at the INS Netaji Subhas, the Indian Navy’s Bengal area base headquarters here.