New building for Berhampur Municipal Corporation office

Following story by Sunil Patnaik from The Telegraph            

BERHAMPUR: Berhampur Municipal Corporation, which was declared the first municipality of Orissa 143 years ago, has initiated steps to construct a new building to accommodate various departments including administrative, engineering, planning, revenue, health and community welfare. “The building would be built at a cost of Rs 15 crore. Berhampur was declared as the first municipality of Orissa in 1867 and two blocks for housing the office of the mayor and commissioner, besides the office of the nizarat, were built by the British rulers then,”said mayor Siba Shankar Dash. “These two blocks would be untouched and kept as heritage structures. The present building, housing the PWD and the health department built half-a-century ago along with the mini park would be razed and we would build an attractive structure there,”he added. The architect of the proposed building, Prabir Kumar Dash, said it would be a five-storey structure with stilts and basement with parking facilities for two-wheelers and light four-wheelers. “The construction of the new building would start from January end. The green building technology to build the structure would be the only of its kind in south Orissa,” he said. The five-storey building would come up over an area of 18,200 square feet to accommodate 20 VIP rooms, more than 80 general rooms, two small conference halls of 720 sq ft each and one large conference hall of 5,100 sq ft. “We will also implement solar energy techniques. The solar cell panels would be embedded above the roof slab of the central conference hall on the fifth floor, said Dash. However, the corporation vehicles would be parked outside the campus.

Source: The Telegraph