Official urges ‘rethink’ of heritage, 'South Calcutta cafes have cracked the code'
Telegraph | 1 December 2025
Heritage must not be seen as an albatross around the neck, but a potential money-maker, the chairman of the state heritage commission said on Saturday.
In a city like Calcutta, dotted with old and majestic but crumbling colonial buildings, the focus should be on giving a fresh lease of life to such edifices.
Public policies have to enable heritage conservation that is economically viable, said Alapan Bandyopadhyay, also the chief adviser to chief minister Mamata Banerjee and a former state chief secretary.
“More often than not, heritage has been portrayed as a burden, as something economically unproductive. It has been suggested that there is no economy in the maintenance or conservation of the heritage of the 18th or 19th centuries. It has been asked why the state should spend its scarce resources on the conservation of that heritage when there are millions of mouths to be fed and nourished?” he asked the audience.
Bandyopadhyay was part of a fireside chat with Smita Chatterji, chairperson of the CII-Indian Women Network’s Bengal chapter.
The session — part of an annual Leadership Conclave organised by the network — explored how Bengal’s heritage and legacy can shape a more balanced and sustainable future.
South model
A slice of south Calcutta has cracked the code, Bandyopadhyay said.
“The building — a temple, mansion, citadel or castle — can be a centre of attraction for tourists. That it can be a cafe, full of visitors from morning to evening; that it can generate revenue; that the building can not only pay continual tribute to its great ancestors but also make employment possible for tens of young boys and girls; that is a lesson you draw every day if you go to south Calcutta,” he said.
“If you go to the Deshapriya Park, Hindusthan Park, Rashbehari Avenue, you will find 100-odd cafes which are great centres of public culture, the new public sphere of south Calcutta, where they have not destroyed the buildings but merely rethought them. That our rethinking can make heritage complementary to growth is a lesson.”
Bandyopadhyay, who lives now in his Ballygunge government quarters, was on point.
Several cafes in south Calcutta operate out of old and restored houses. The character or the essence of the house is unchanged and serves as its unique selling proposition.
Metro had written about one such project.
The owners of a nearly 100-year-old house on Sadananda Road in Kalighat had been searching for years for a buyer who would not raze the property. The G+3 building has a red façade and green lattice windows made of teakwood.
A couple of years ago, they finally found a suitable buyer. The new owner has turned the ground floor with a courtyard into a cafe. The upper floors feature a co-working area, space for curated events and even rooms for guests, which celebrate Calcutta.
“That heritage and economic growth can be complementary; that, in our own city, young men and women are recreating, reconserving and re-engineering our heritage in a growth-oriented manner; is a story that needs to be told, appreciated and acclaimed in forums like this,” Bandyopadhyay said on Saturday.
He batted for “prudent trade-off, intelligent compromise and smart innovation” to make the relationship between heritage conservation and economic renewal complementary. “Private money can be garnered by conserving heritage if public policy makers enable this renewal in smarter ways,” he said.
At the Saturday conclave, the keynote address was delivered by Swami Sarvapriyananda, minister-in-charge of the Vedanta Society of New York.
The topic was — Stillness in the storm: Cultivating calm, clarity and ethics in the chaos of disruption.