PUNE: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) will help to conserve city-based Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute’s heritage building. The PMC has decided to give an amount of Rs 75 lakh from the Mayor’s Fund. According to the PMC heritage department, the building is in Grade-I category.
Mayor Mukta Tilak has tabled a proposal and shown willingness to provide funds to conserve the heritage building of one of the oldest archaeological college located in Yerawada.
Under the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, there is a provision to allot development fund to the city mayor, which the mayor can provide for various development work called Mayor Fund In PMC, the mayor has Rs 10 crore of funds.
While speaking to Sakal Times, Mayor Tilak said, “Deccan College’s main building is a heritage structure and we have to preserve it. The college administration requires Rs 3.50 crore funds to preserve heritage structure. They had requested PMC for funds and we have decided to take onus.”
“Last year, we provided the college with Rs 50 lakh. This year, we have decided to give another Rs 75 lakh. Last year, college administration completed 40 per cent work on the first floor of the structure. The college has many rare books and it is our responsibility to preserve them,” she added.
It is the third oldest educational institute in India.
The journey of Deccan College began on October 6, 1821, when the then governor of Bombay Presidency Mountstuart Elphinstone started Hindoo College with Dakshina Fund, which was set up by Khanderao Dabhade, a Maratha Sardar and was continued by the Peshwas for propagating Sanskrit studies.
The college grew and emerged as a foremost institute in the world of higher learning and research. It was renamed as Poona College on June 7, 1851 and later as the Deccan College in October 1864. The Deccan College was later shifted to the new campus covering an area of 115 acres near Yerawada on March 23, 1868.
The college was shut by the British in 1934, but continuous efforts of its alumni and citizens, it reopened on August 17, 1939, after the Transfer Deed was passed by the Bombay High Court.