NAGPUR: The over century-old building near Zero Miles in
Civil Lines, which used to house multiple forest offices, will give way to a new structure at a cost of Rs 23 crore. It will be a sort of mini ‘Van Bhavan’ in the city.
The old building was constructed in 1910-11 and it used to have South Zone Circle forest office, whose jurisdiction was spread over thousands of hectares of forests in
Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh under CP & Berar. The structure is not a heritage building. State forest department was functioning in it since 1955.
It used to have offices of additional principal chief conservators of forests (APCCF) in charge of wildlife, Nagpur East, chief conservator (CCF) of Nagpur Circle, field director of Pench Tiger Reserve, working plan (Nagpur), and deputy conservator of forest (DyCF), Nagpur. All these offices have now been shifted on a rental basis to BSNL building opposite Kasturchand Park.
“The old building, which looked strong from the outside, had started disintegrating from inside. Though the premises is huge, it did not have a meeting hall, security, toilets and proper facilities for people and guests who visited these offices from entire region. There were leakages within and lack of space for officers and staff,” said senior forest officials.
Though there was no space for increased staff, forest officials spent lakhs of rupees in the last few years on renovation of individual offices. Now all this money has gone down the drain.
“The new building will be a 3-storeyed structure and will incorporate green building concept. It will take around three years to complete,” said CCF Sanjeev Gaur.
According to forest sources, construction of administrative buildings in respective forest headquarters was an old proposal. “As per old plan, the building at Zero Miles was to be a 7-storeyed structure and all offices in different rental premises all over the city were to be brought here. However, as it is very close to Vidhan Bhavan the plan was dropped,” said sources.
In 2011, a fresh plan was made with a 3-storey structure. Forest minister
Sudhir Mungantiwar, who also has finance department, gave a big push to construction of these administrative buildings. “The new building will also house social forestry offices presently functioning from rented premises in Civil Lines,” said Gaur.
