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Illegal construction at George Orwell’s birthplace halted
MOTIHARI: The alleged encroachment upon the protected birth place of English writer George Orwell by the Bihar government was halted on Wednesday, days after HT
MOTIHARI: The alleged encroachment upon the protected birth place of English writer George Orwell by the Bihar government was halted on Wednesday, days after HT brought the matter to light.
The illegal construction came to the fore on June 25, which is also the author’s birth anniversary. HT had carried a report, ‘Govt encroaches upon Orwell’s ‘protected’ birthplace in Bihar’ in its June 26 edition. East Champaran district magistrate Anupam Kumar has ordered an inquiry into the matter.
The writer was born in what is now known as the Gyan Babu Chowk locality in Motihari.
An organisation that celebrates Orwell’ s life in India said the urban development department had started construction work on a 2.5-acre land declared a protected site by the state government. In 2010, the state government declared half of the five-acre compound of Orwell’s birthplace as a protected site and handed it over to the art and culture department to develop a park named after him, Deopriye Mukherjee, chairman of the George Orwell Commemorative Committee, said.
