Recalling the historian Pajal Sakhardande, he said, “It was the tallest building in Goa when it came up and perhaps only a second building with a lift.” “We used to go there just to see the lift.”
‘Junta House’ – Goa’s tallest building when it was built six decades ago – and one of its early skyscrapers is declared ‘unsafe’ and is designed to vacate it.
In an order, Anitit Yadav, Collector and Chairperson of the District Disaster Management Authority of North Goa, said last week that the building is “structurally weak” and a “security threat” caused by significantly declining and retrophiting that is not financially fair. The Collector has ordered the entire eviction of the entire Junta House Building within a month. The order is the end of an era to the city. The building, which has a wall of an elderly woman – ‘Mausi Rosie’ in a red dress holds a grocery bag in one hand and a coconut in the other – on her forearm, on her front, the first manufacture is formed.
For more than two decades, Dr. Mahendra Tamba lived and worked in a building in front of Junta House. “As of 1984, Madan Lal Sadan and Junta House were the only skyscrapers in Panaji. The Regional Transport Office (RTO) used to be on the first floor. I remember that they used to test for a learner’s license on the road between Akbar Ali Building and Junta House.”
“It is a historic building and has a heritage value. It should be preserved,” Sakhardande said.
Located in the capital Panaji along the June 18 road and Swami Vivekananda Road, a six-storey building was constructed in the early 1960s, when Goa was freed from Portuguese rule. The government building was inaugurated on August 15, 1966 by the then LG of Goa, Daman and Diu Kremal during the tenure of the first Chief Minister of Goa Dayanand Bandodkar. The prestigious Edifis symbolizes a transformative and modern vision of Goa Post Liberation.
Historian Dr. Maria de Luardes Bravo Dr. Costa said that the land on which the building came, was of an autonomous department of the government, ‘External Trade Board) (External Trade Board) during the Portuguese time, which granted import licenses. “They had their own warehouse, which is still present next to the building. Therefore, when it was constructed, the building took the name of the same Portuguese to ‘Junta’.”
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The building was opened in Panaji in 1966. (Express photo)
A government official who requested an oblivion said, “There was also a quarrel with some people, who wanted to nominate the building as the ‘public’ house, meaning ‘construction of people’.
Government departments operating from the building include the Department of Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs, Directorates, Planning, Statistics and Evaluation Directorates, Commissioner Labor and Employment Office, Civil Registrar-cum-regulation of the office, Goa Forest Development Corporate Limited and Goa State Consumer disputes.
With the offices of the Department of Transport and Labor and Employment, which works from the building, its central place within the city made itself a site of many attacks and movements. The leaders of the trade union often used to camp near the ladder of the building and sit on a hunger strike.
In December 1978, the student unions, which were demanding 50 percent concession in the fares of the bus, asked the Regional Transport Office (RTO) to be known as “half -ticket” agitation at Junta House Building, Sakhardande said. “The movement, in a way, began from the building.”
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The sixth floor of the campus, which kept the Swami Vivekananda Samaj, was most famous. The state-of-the-art Swami Vivekananda Hall was all cultural programs-the culture, Marathi and Konkani drama, the subscription of classical music, dance classes and lectures.
Dr. Tamba said, “Kala Academy did not come at that time … It was the only hall where people could go to see theater, music and dance performance.”
Prakash Kamat, a member of the State Advisory Board on Disability, said, “My wedding reception took place on 26 January 1993 at Swami Vivekananda Hall of Junta House.” “The building included a public interface in many government offices. People would go there to get birth, death and marriage registration certificate or pay traffic challans.”
A public astronomical observatory operated by the roof of the building, was established by the Association of Friends of Astronomy (AFA) in 1990 and is supported and funded by the Government of Goa. Satish Nayak, President Public Astronomical Observatory and AFA stated that the association was founded in 1982 by famous historian and bureaucracy Persyaval Noron.
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Architect Analysis da Costa, who wrote a dissertation through architecture in Goa after 1961, said that the design of the Junta House is ‘modernist’. “The fronts had horizontal and vertical bands, horizontal balconies and a solid structure. It had a flat roof and was on a large scale, which was unusual for Goan structures at that time. The elements in the building were heavy affected and similar to the architecture of other buildings.
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