The Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) had dropped the idea of renaming the landmark Dak Bungalow crossing after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

In 2002, the chowk was named after Nobel laureate Rabindra Nadh Tagore.

As reported by HT on December 17, The Bihar Bengali Association had lodged its protest over the reported move of the PMC to rename the crossing after Vajpayee.

“CM himself called after reading the HT report and said that since the Dak Bungalow crossing had once been named after Tagore, it would not be changed,” said Dilip Kumar Sinha, the Association’s president .

At a hurriedly called press conference on Tuesday, Patna municipal commissioner Anpam Kumar Suman said the empowered standing committee (ESC) headed by Patna mayor Sita Sahu would explore the scope setting up a statue of Tagore at the crossing along with a signage to make Dak Bungalow crossing popular as Rabindra chowk.

In the presence of Sahu, the PMC commissioner clarified that though renaming of the crossing was among the proposals to be discussed at the ESC, the agenda were not finalised. “It could have been eliminated in course of verification of the proposal, which was submitted by ward councillor Vikas Kumar,” said Suman, adding that some senior officers of the government had inquired about the move after it came out in the newspaper.

In its bid to make people aware about important locations named after famous statesmen and personalities, the PMC would erect signages at roundabouts and roads. “We would also seek help of Google officials for geo-tagging of locations with new names so that they were available in Google maps as well,” said Suman.

First Published: Dec 19, 2018 09:37 IST