Town Hall will finally get a facelift

After about three years of clearance from the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the AAP government has finally given the green signal for re-development of the Town Hall in Chandni Chowk into a Centre of Cultural and Social Heritage depicting history, culture and life of Delhi. At a high level meeting, chief secretary K. K. Sharma directed the Shahjahanabad Redevelopment Corporation (SRDC) to proceed further with the project after getting approval from the competent authority.

Town Hall, which is a landmark building in Old Delhi, was the seat of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi from 1866 during the British Raj till late 2009, when offices shifted to the new MCD Civic Centre on Minto Road in Central Delhi formally inaugurated in 2010. The construction of the building started in 1860 and was completed in 1863. It is constructed out of yellow painted brick and stone and carved white stone trim.

Declared as a heritage building by the Urban Development Department of the Delhi government, Town Hall was initially known as Lawrence Institute of Higher Studies before it was bought by the municipality for $ 2,000 in 1866. Besides government offices, the building also had a library and a European club. Originally, a bronze statue of Queen Victoria stood in front of the hall. After independence in 1947, it was replaced with a statue of the Arya Samaj leader Swami Shraddhanand. The original statue now stands in Delhi College of Art premises. The location is officially termed Ghantaghar after a clock tower that stood there.

Way back in 2013, the then NDMC commissioner had proposed to develop the Town Hall into a Centre of Cultural and Social Heritage. The objective of the re-development project was to provide complete and wholesome family experience at the Town Hall and to develop it into an attractive tourist destination of international standards.