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Chandigarh administrator slams brakes on Kiran Cinema revamp plan
A statement issued by the administrator’s office on Friday said the heritage panel’s decision with regard to allowing construction at Kiran Cinema had been kept in abeyance in the interest of conserving Chandigarh’s heritage
On Sept 14, the committee had allowed the theatre owner to construct two commercial floors without demolishing the outer façade
Eight days after the Chandigarh Heritage Conservation Committee (CHCC) allowed the owner of Kiran Cinema in Sector 22 to construct two commercial floors without demolishing the outer façade, UT administrator Banwarilal Purohit on Friday put the decision on hold.
CHCC’s decision had come during a meeting chaired by UT adviser Dharam Pal on September 14.
A statement issued by the administrator’s office on Friday said the CHCC’s decision with regard to allowing construction at Kiran Cinema had been kept in abeyance in the interest of conserving Chandigarh’s heritage.
It added that no action should be taken by any department on the issue until further orders, as it requires further examination and consultation.
The administrator had directed that all views by CHCC members should be duly noted in the proceedings before any decision was made, the statement stated.
During the September 14 meeting, while allowing commercial use, the committee members had observed that the property in question was essentially commercial in nature. It was acquired by the owner through a public auction on a freehold basis for use as a cinema.
The committee had unanimously recommended that while preserving the building’s heritage value and historical significance, retrofitting and adaptive commercial reuse should be allowed as per the existing building bylaws.
The panel had previously rejected the owner’s proposal to convert the building into a multiplex. Citing that Sector 22 is a heritage sector and the theatre itself was designed by Le Corbusier’s associate Maxwell Fry in 1956, the committee had said such buildings cannot be demolished and can only be adaptively reused.
The owner had then submitted a proposal to permit commercial operations, while choosing to cease movie screenings, already stalled since 2019.
Heritage tag should not impact private properties: MHA in its directive
As per the minutes of the September 14 meeting, the issue of Kiran Cinema was also brought to the committee’s attention through a reference received from the Union ministry of home affairs (MHA).
The reference pertained to announcements made by Union home minister Amit Shah regarding Chandigarh, wherein it was intimated that CHCC was engaged in the work of preparing a list of heritage buildings. This, the minister had directed, should not have any adverse impact on private properties. If any private properties were declared heritage buildings, there should be adequate compensatory provisions, it was directed.
There are 200 seats in the theatre, located in the city’s oldest sector and owned by Delhi-based businessman Chetan Gupta. Between 1996 and 2005, it stuck to the risky but ultimately profitable idea of screening only popular Hollywood hits such as Titanic, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, and James Bond movies.
It was also one of the first places in Chandigarh to screen the live telecast of the 2002 Football World Cup.
Earlier on August 4, the UT administrator had also put the Sector-53 general housing scheme of the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) on hold, stating that there was no need for the scheme currently. As a result, the board had to cancel the ₹200-crore tenders floated on August 2 for construction of 340 flats on nine acres.
Notably, the board had revived the scheme in February this year, five years after it was scrapped in 2018 over poor response from buyers, primarily due to high flat rates. The UT had administrator emphasised that CHB should focus on its ongoing works.
The board had planned to offer 340 flats in three categories — 192 three-bedroom, 100 two-bedroom and 48 two-bedroom EWS flats, for ₹1.65 crore, ₹1.40 crore and ₹55 lakh, respectively.
