In a city where history whispers from the bricks of every colonial edifice, a new chapter of pride and preservation was written today as the historic Income Tax Office building at 3 Government Place (West) in Kolkata lit up in all its architectural glory.
The officials said the idea is to attract the attention of visitors to the building and announce its grand presence.
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The initiative, officials emphasised, involved: “No structural tampering”, reinforcing a commitment to both preservation and progress. Adding deeper resonance to the evening’s celebrations was the inauguration of a heritage archive on the building’s rooftop—a curated trove of documents, photographs, and narratives tracing the department’s historical journey. Unveiled on 23 September 2024 by the chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the archive is poised to become a living museum of institutional memory.
Once known as the Imperial Secretariat, this grand structure, constructed in 1890-91, stood tall as a beacon of governance during the British Raj. In the days of the British Raj, this very building wasn’t merely an office, it was the nerve centre of the subcontinent’s entire tax architecture. From its stately corridors, the blueprint of India’s revenue collection system was drafted, dictated, and deployed across the empire. Here, the British meticulously engineered a fiscal framework that would later shape the economic skeleton of modern India. In an elegant illumination ceremony, the Income Tax department of West Bengal and Sikkim started celebration of the building’s rebirth as a heritage site and a modern-day monument.
The event, held under the shadow of the Writers’ Building, the city’s first office complex, evoked a deep sense of nostalgia and national pride. While the Writers’ Building housed the young clerks of the East India Company in 1777, the Income Tax edifice soon followed as a colonial administrative cornerstone dedicated to fiscal governance. Niraj Kumar, IRS, principal chief commissioner of Income Tax, West Bengal & Sikkim, said: “This illumination is not merely aesthetic. It’s a declaration that our legacy lives on. We want to connect the present generation with the rich tapestry of our department’s journey, one that began in this very building.” Before the towering Aayakar Bhawan rose in Chowringhee, it was this building that served as the command centre of the Income Tax department in Eastern India. It housed the office of the commissioner of Income Tax, Bengal, and functioned as a nerve centre for revenue collection, an idea the British administration had rapidly adopted after laying the administrative foundation in Kolkata.