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Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee gets 2nd office as precaution amid Covid concerns
The three-storey annexe building will not just house the second office of the chief minister, but also the offices for the chief secretary and home secretary.
With West Bengal registering a sharp spike in Covid-19 cases and the virus taking a toll at Nabanna – the 14-storey building which houses the state secretariat - chief minister Mamata Banerjee will get a second office at an adjacent building named ‘Upanna’.
The three-storey annexe building will not just house the second office of the chief minister, but also the offices for the chief secretary and home secretary. Banerjee had inaugurated the building on July 22 and is likely to start using the new office from this month, senior officials said.
“More than a dozen employees, including police personnel posted at Nabanna, have already tested positive for Covid-19 and many employees had to be sent on home quarantine. The entire high-rise has to be shut down regularly for sanitisation,” said a senior official.
The Nabanna would remain closed for sanitisation on August 13 and 14. Earlier it was closed on August 3 and 4 for sanitisation.
It was in mid-March that the Covid-scare gripped the Nabanna building for the first time when a bureaucrat, whose son had tested positive, attended office and held meetings. The state home secretary had to stay in home quarantine and Banerjee was seemingly peeved with the bureaucrat.
“Entry to the three-storey annexe building would be restricted and only the top bureaucrats would have access to it to check any contamination. This would also help the CM to hold meetings when the state secretariat is closed down for sanitisation. The CM’s office at Nabanna would be retained so that she can hold meetings as and when need arises,” said a senior official.
As elevators are thought to be a potential source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, recently one VIP elevator at Nabanna has been reserved for the chief minister. A second elevator has been reserved for some of the top bureaucrats such as the chief secretary, home secretary and director general of police. Only the vehicles in the chief minister’s convoy are allowed to park in the basement. The rest of the vehicles have also been shifted.
The BJP took a swipe at the CM moving offices in the middle of a pandemic.
“In 2013 she shifted the state secretariat from Writers’ Buildings to Nabanna. Now she is shifting again to Upanna. After the assembly elections of 2021, she will return to her house at Kalighat, from where she started her career,” said BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha.
It was in October 2013, just two years after assuming power, Banerjee shifted the state secretariat from the iconic Writers’ Buildings in central Kolkata to Nabanna in Howrah district on the opposite bank of River Hooghly. It was the first time that the state secretariat was shifted out of Writers’ Buildings after Independence.
