BHAWANIPATNA: Three years after its construction started, the new Town Hall in Bhawanipatna is far from complete due to inadequate funds. Work on the building, with a 700 seating capacity, started in 2016 after the old Town Hall was demolished. While the overall estimate for the project has been revised to Rs 6.5 crore, the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) department has released only Rs 3.8 crore so far.
The project is being executed by Roads and Building (R &B) Division of the Works department on a 12,000 sq ft area. Apart from the core structure, the contract agency has completed a part of the interior works including ceiling construction, furniture and acoustics.
Sources in R&B informed that over Rs 5.7 crore has been spent till now. An additional Rs 2.10 crore, which includes Rs 90 lakh arrears to the contract agency, is required for the Town Hall to become fully functional.
PWD executive engineer Ajit Babu said, “We need funds for central air conditioning, installation of diesel generator and transformer, etc to make the building fully operational.”
The old Town Hall of Bhawanipatna Municipality had been razed after being in a derelict condition for many years. Subsequently, the HUD department in 2016-17 had sanctioned Rs 4 crore for construction of a new Town Hall in the town.