LAHORE, April 7: No professional inspection of the two heritage buildings along The Mall has so far been carried out to assess the damage caused by the March 11 blast at the FIA headquarters on Temple Road.
The Sir Ganga Ram and Dyal Singh Trusts’ buildings have an aerial distance of 100 meters or so from the FIA offices and tenants say the impact of the blast worsened the (already deteriorating) condition of the pre-partition structures, raised by two philanthropists to whom the city owes a lot. A civil engineer and leading philanthropist of his times, Sir Ganga Ram designed and built the General Post Office, the Lahore Museum, the Aitchison College, the Mayo School of Arts (now the NCA), the Ganga Ram Hospital, the Lady Mclagan Girls High School, the chemistry department of the Government College Lahore (now GC University), the Albert Victor wing of Mayo Hospital, the Hailey College of Commerce, the Ravi Road House for the Disabled, the Ganga Ram Trust Building on The Mall and the Lady Maynard Industrial School.
He also constructed Model Town, once the best locality of Lahore, the powerhouse at Renala Khurd as well as the railway track between Pathankot and Amritsar.
A great philanthropist who supported all good causes, Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia was among the first 10 members of the Punjab Public Library. He still lives on through his generous legacy, which enabled the establishment of the Sardar Dyal Singh Trust Library and the Dyal Singh College in Lahore besides the Majithia Hall on Empress Road that now houses the Haji Camp.
The Tajdeed-i-Lahore Committee, constituted in 2000 to take up restoration of some of the old buildings on The Mall and the adjoining streets to their original architectural splendour, merely carried out repairs of the front portions of the two buildings and that, too, at the expense of the tenants but ignored the rear parts.
A number of tenants living in the rear of the two buildings claimed that the two structures had never been repaired. “Several government departments’ officials arrive whenever anyone of us starts renovation or repair of any part of the buildings on our own. Even we are issued eviction notices, though we are regularly paying the rent on time,” a tenant, Shahid Chaudhry advocate, told this reporter.
Governor Khalid Maqbool took personal interest for the restoration of the tenancy of Shezan restaurant at Dyal Singh Mansion that was burnt by rioters some years ago, he added. “The governor should now intervene and prevent the situation from worsening,” the lawyer demanded.