Has BORI repaired heritage building sans PMC approval?

As the 93-year old Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) has begun repair works on the heritage building of the Printing Press on its premises, employees of BORI claim that the repairs are illegal and the institute has not sought the civic body's permission to undertake any such work.u00a0

Members of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), who run the employee union of BORI, said that they are against the illegal construction undertaken on the institute premises and have raised the issue with the executive committee of BORI. An employee of the institute, Abhijeet Bagade, said, "This is a heritage building and we will not allow any illegal repair work to be done here."u00a0

Head of BORI modernisation cell, Anant Gogate,u00a0said, "We are not touchingu00a0the original building of the Printing Press that was constructed in 1933, but the adjoining portion of the building that was constructed later. We have not violated any rule as the walls that were razed are not part of the originalu00a0structure."

Honorary secretary of BORI, Dr Maitreyee Deshpande, said that they had soughtu00a0permission from the Pune Municipal Commission (PMC) to undertake repair worksu00a0in the building, the Printing press, the Tata Hall and the Nizam Guest House. She said that the PMC officials might have missed the mention of the Printing press, while granting the permission for the other two buildings.u00a0

"They (PMC) haveu00a0verbally given us the permission for undertaking repair works in the Printing Press building, but we are yet to receive an official letter from them," she added.u00a0According to Deshpande, the civic body has no objection to repairing the Printing Press building.u00a0

Shyam Dhawale, civic body Head of Heritage Cell, said,u00a0"It is true that an official letter for the repair work atu00a0

the Printing press has notu00a0been issued, but we are in discussion with the institute about the same."u00a0

The books printed by the institute's printing press are reportedly gathering dust, while many of them are being destroyed by termites.

Since the Press building has been shut for the last few decades, the machinery is also in a bad condition. When MiD DAY pointed this out to Dr Maitreyee Deshpande, the honorary secretary of the institute, sheu00a0assured that the books and the printing material would be shifted to another room soon.u00a0