Delhi’s iconic Town Hall to be leased out

The Town Hall was built in the 1863. It was initially known as Lawrence Institute and housed Delhi College of Higher Studies before it was bought by the municipality for ₹1,35,457 in 1866.

Delhi’s Victorian-era Town Hall, the headquarters of the erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in Chandni Chowk, will be leased out for 33 years on a monthly fee of ₹1.92 crore to be turned into a heritage hotel or a museum, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the custodian of the building, said on Wednesday.

The Town Hall used to be the headquarters of the erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi. HT archive

The corporation issued a tender document on Wednesday, three years after the proposal to lease out the iconic building was cleared in 2018.

The Town Hall was built in the 1863. It was initially known as Lawrence Institute and housed Delhi College of Higher Studies before it was bought by the municipality for ₹1,35,457 in 1866.

It served as the seat of the MCD until the corporations shifted to the Civic Centre near Ramlila ground in 2012. A senior north corporation official privy to the development said, “The move will boost our revenue and help conserve the building. The restoration of the Town Hall will also be in tune in with the redeveloped Chandni Chowk. Tenders for the project have been floated and technical bids will be opened on August 5.”

Former North MCD mayor Jai Prakash said the civic body has been spending ₹2-3 lakh every month on the upkeep of the building. “So it was decided to bring a scheme to rent out the Town Hall for 33 years to any private group, preferably from hospitality industry, so that commercial activities like a heritage hotel can be taken up here. It will bring the funds to the corporation and give a new lease of life to the historical building,” Prakash said.

Veena Virmani, former chairman of the standing committee which approved the move, said “The proposal to rent out the building has clear instructions that the restoration and adaptive reuse of the Town Hall has to be in sync with the norms of the central government’s Heritage Conservation Committee (HCC),”

Swapna Liddle, a historian and the author of Chandni Chowk: The Mughal City of Old Delhi, said: “The best use of the Town Hall building is turning it into a city museum so that people can come here and know more about the rich culture of Delhi. Now that Chandni Chowk has been redeveloped, the footfall here will increase so it makes more sense to develop a museum here.”