As the fate of Osmania General Hospital hangs in the balance, its twin building, the Government City College, is getting a much-needed makeover. A conservation effort backed by the Central government and the Telangana government has begun to save the building designed by Vincent Esch. The building will complete a century in 2021.
“We have started the work on the outside of the building as much of the original plastering was peeling off. Though the building has a core of steel beams, stone and lime mortar, years of neglect and seepage have damaged it. Most of the decorative elements of the building have actually disappeared,” said an official supervising the operations.
Slaked lime mixed with sand and other organic material cured over 50 days is being used to re-plaster the building.
The massive 16,000 sq. ft red building is a testimony to the Nizam Osman Ali Khan’s effort to improve public infrastructure. The City College was built along with Osmania General Hospital, Kachiguda railway station and the High Court. The OGH and City College were built using the then new-fangled technology of reinforced concrete beams. When completed, the City College cost only one-third that of the High Court building which was built in pink granite.
Vincent Esch called the style Perpendicular Mughal Sarcenic, and the City High School for Boys began functioning from it in 1921. An early photograph of the building shows a huge set back that shows the grandeur of the building, but now, one has to peek over the wall to have a glimpse.
“The building is strong and has been meeting all the challenges thrown at it, but there has been wear and tear. We got money from two sources: Under Rashtriya Uchhitar Siksha Abhiyan (RUSA), we got ₹2 crore of which ₹1.1 crore is being used for the conservation work. Another tranche of ₹1.83 crore is sanctioned by the Telangana government for the work,” informed Manjulata, principal of the City College. “We are doing the bare minimum restoration. To carry out a full-scale restoration both inside and outside the building, we will need ₹15 crore. At present, the focus is on reinforcing the building by improving the drainage system. The façade has borne the brunt of weather and a lot of work has to be done on it,” said Ms. Manjulata.For a government college with hundreds of students moving around, most of the toilets are in an unusable condition. “There is no water,” says an office boy, about the foul smell in the toilets.
Even the grand seminar hall, which is kept locked, is a shell of its grandeur with broken chairs and tables.
But for now, the workers are waiting with trepidation about the onset of monsoon which is bound to push back the work schedule.
