The clock sitting atop the historic Crawford Market is considered to be of heritage value. The tag, however, has not helped it in anyway.
More than a month after it got damaged, the heritage clock is yet to be brought back to life The clock sitting atop the historic Crawford Market is considered to be of heritage value. The tag, however, has not helped it in anyway.
More than a month after torrential rains damaged the clock and it stopped ticking, civic authorities responsible for maintaining the 134-year-old clock are yet to restore it. While the dial and hands of one of the four faces of the clock fell during the heavy rains on August 4, the remaining three faces have also stopped working.
Civic officials from the market department claimed that lack of budgetary provision is causing the delay. “The damage to the clock was not anticipated, hence, the market department did not make any budgetary provision for its repairs,” a senior official said. The only other time the clock’s hands stopped ticking was in 2004.
Then it took three years to make it tick. In fact, had it not been for a Right to Information (RTI) query and months of correspondence by Andheri furniture trader
Aziz Amreliwala, the city could have been mourning the loss of a heritage monument.
After the activist brought the neglect to light, the Tata Sons trust approached the BMC for sponsoring its repair. Venkatesh Rao, one of the very few possessing the ability to mend a vintage clock, agreed to lend a hand in the repairs. The spare parts were brought from various parts of the country. But the effort paid off only for a year or so. The civic body’s contract with the trust to oversee the clock’s operation and maintenance expired this July. It had been on its own since then.
A furious Amreliwala told DNA that this only illustrates the lack of value for national heritage. Market department officials said that they had requested the civic engineering department to arrange for repair work funds. DNA is in possession of a communication made by the department to this effect on September 4.
Amreliwala remarked that in the face of such procedural delays, one did not know when the damaged clock will be mended. While the civic body does not mind pumping money for developing infrastructure, it comes as a shock that BMC explains lack of resources as the reason for delay in repairs of a heritage monument. Market department officials said that a contract would soon be floated for the operation and periodical
maintenance of the clock.
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