14 months, 2 fires, 200-page report… Will MP’s Satpura Bhawan be renovated or demolished? no one has answers – madhya pradesh satpura bhawan fire something new is built or broken no one has answers

Bhopal: It has been more than a year since the massive fire at the Satpura Bhawan building. The government is yet to decide whether the Satpura Bhawan and Vindhyachal Bhawan buildings, which house the offices of department heads of various government offices, will be renovated or demolished and rebuilt.

The office has not yet been renovated.

The remains of the burnt goods in the fire that broke out at Satpura Bhavan on June 12 last year caught fire again on February 20 this year. However, the two fires have not brought about any change and the charred floors of the Satpura building have remained as they were after the fire in June 2023.

Projects worth Rs 170 crore were approved.

In February, officials claimed that renovation work on the Satpura Bhawan and Vindhyachal Bhawan buildings would begin soon. The government has approved a renovation project worth around Rs 170 crore for the buildings. In the meeting held in the presence of the Chief Secretary in July, construction of new buildings instead of renovating the Satpura Bhawan and Vindhyachal Bhawan buildings was discussed. Both the buildings came into existence in 1982.

Forensic experts came from Gujarat.

Public Works Department officials said the issue is still pending and it is not yet clear whether the two buildings will be renovated or reconstructed. After the Satpura Bhavan fire in June last year, the government had hired forensic experts from Gujarat to assess the structural strength of the building. Their report was submitted to the Madhya Pradesh government.

The report was 200 pages long.

The investigation revealed that the electric cable at Satpura Bhawan was old and could not bear the load, leading to a short circuit and a fire that engulfed the tribal and health department offices on different floors of the building. MP government officials said the report suggested that there was no need to demolish the building. The 200-page report was submitted to the government in September last year.

Officials said the report suggested ways to renovate the building and improve its structural strength. Based on this, a renovation project was created. However, instead of going ahead with the renovation, a proposal was put forward to construct new Satpura Bhawan and Vindhyachal Bhawan buildings, and a decision on the matter has not yet been taken.

The fire occurred on March 9.

On March 9, floors of the Vallabh Bhavan building, the most important of the three administrative buildings – Vallabh Bhavan, Satpura Bhavan and Vindhyachal Bhavan, were burnt down. The government has decided to renovate the building. Officials did not explain why a decision could not be taken on the renovation or reconstruction of the Satpura Bhawan building, more than a year after the massive fire.

There is a long history of fires.

Three administrative buildings (Vallabh Bhawan, Satpura Bhawan and Vindhyachal Bhawan) have a history of fires and destruction of important government documents.

• First, on 28 November 2013, a major fire broke out at Vindhyachal Bhawan.

• Two years later, a fire broke out in the same Vindhyachal Bhawan building. On 4 October 2015, government records were burnt in a fire at Vindhyachal Bhawan.

• On June 12 last year, a massive fire at Satpura Bhawan razed three floors of the health department and one floor of the tribal department.

• The remains of the goods burnt in the fire that broke out on June 12 last year at Satpura Bhawan caught fire again on February 20.

• On March 9, the Vallabh Bhawan I building burst into flames.

This is the situation when the Chief Minister, ministers and bureaucracy work from Vallabh Bhawan and its two adjacent buildings, Satpura Bhawan and Vindhyachal Bhawan in the state capital.