113-year-old 'pride of Tarikere' awaits facelift

The 113-year-old taluk office at Tarikere which is famous for its superior architecture, is waiting for a facelift. For the residents of Tarikere, this century old building is nothing but the pride of their town.

The building, located in the heart of the city was built by the British in 1900 and was the centre of administration. The building which is in Indo-Saracenic model, comprises of strong walls, roof, walls made out of limestone and sand mixture, ventilation facility and a huge ground in the front. Though the building is old, it is still strong. The building which was once accommodating various government offices like taluk office, assistant commissioner’s office, taluk office, police station, prison, excise department, survey department, sub-registrar’s office, agriculture department office, is now lying vacant crying for attention.

The reason for taluk office losing its good old glory is the construction of Mini Vidhana Sowdha in the taluk centre. The concept of Mini Vidhana Sowdha pushed by the government in 1999, for bringing all the government offices under one roof, led to the shifting of all offices from the old taluk office to the new building. The new building exists in the outskirts of the town.

With the shifting, the old taluk office shelters only the sub-jail and the sub-jail too is expected to shift to some other building soon. Apart from the sub-jail, some of the rooms in the taluk office are now used by the agriculture department as godown. Some of the village accountants have converted a few rooms as their offices. Though there are plans to hand over the building to the Medical Department, the plan has not yet been materialised.

“The building that has witnessed a century and tens of rare incidents and narrates several stories from the history, would preserve its old beauty and strength, if it is maintained well. This building has to be preserved like a memorial in order to bring back the memories of the past and narrate the history to the new generation. The elected representatives should come forward to retain the beauty of the old taluk office,” says freedom fighter Channappa. Advocate Madhu Kumar observes the technically strong architecture of the building and says that the new buildings like Mini Vidhana Sowdha stand nowhere in quality before this building. “Mini Vidhana Sowdha which was built 15 years ago is already in dilapidated condition,” he says.