The 120-year-old Ellisbridge may have escaped the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC) chopping block following a public outcry, but the experience has created worries about the fate of other heritage structures in the city.
Now there are fears that the civic body is planning to demolish the old VS Hospital building and Chinai Maternity Home, both examples of Indo-Saracenic architecture. Members of the donor families on the VS Hospital management board claim to have learnt from the municipal commissioner’s proposal that the civic body wants to bring down the historic buildings to create parking space for a chic new 20-strorey multi-specialty hospital planned on the campus.
“The civic body plans to name a ward in the new building after the original donors, Sheth Vadilal Sarabhai and the Chinai family,” said Rupa Chinai, a member of the VS Hospital management board. She further alleged that the municipal commissioner had said that they were short of land and needed more space for parking facility.
Rupa Chinai’s apprehension is that facilities for the new Rs331 crore-building will get precedence over heritage structures.
Officials in the AMC’s hospital department deny any such plans for now but in the documents showing the new hospital campus layout, both the heritage buildings are ‘marked’ but, for what, no one knows.
The officials, too, refuse to reveal what the markings mean.
“I don’t understand technical details. As far as I know, there is no proposal for demolition but no one can guarantee once the new building is ready for use,” a senior official of the department said. Municipal commissioner Guruprasad Mohapatra too denies any such plans.
Mistrust between the AMC and the hospital’s donor families has been brewing ever since the civic body implemented a controversial decision to reduce the 1,185 beds in the VS Hospital to 120 beds. Interestingly, this decision was taken despite strong protests from members of the donor families who continue to be on the hospital’s board. Moreover, the AMC’s proposal to demolish the Ellisbridge further reduced the goodwill for it.
Another member of VS Hospital management board, the architect Brijesh Chinai, said that the hospital buildings were built in a period when the art deco style of architecture was dominant. This style, fused with regional characteristics of Mughal architecture, came to be popularly known as Indo-Saracenic architecture.
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