Palpa Palace under indifference

Being shade under the eyes of political leaders, historical Tansen Darbar (Tansen Palace) of Palpa district which was demolished by Maoists during Palpa attack on 1 February last year is still waiting for renovation. On a course of past one year political affairs, country saw many changes- king was stripped of his power, Maoists entered in Singh Darbar, but smashed Tansen palace has been standing unchanged with broken walls and strewn historical remains.

No consensus has been reached among various parties on the way to renovate the palace where a half dozen of offices were operated before the attack. The dispute is lingering whether to renovate the palace as it was before or in different way.

CPN-UML, People’s Front Nepal and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) have been insisting that the palace and the surroundings should be developed as tourism spot while other parties have suggested renovating the palace and setting up the government offices therein. On the other hand, Building Division has mapped suggesting the construction of a building for official purpose and to develop another building and surrounding for solely tourism purpose.

Amidst the disputes, Chief District Officer (CDO) Bal Krishna Panthi has recommended Department of Archaeology (DoA) to construct the palace as per the technicians’ suggestions.

The locals residing near the palace have demanded that the offices should be set up in the palace to be renovated while other have demanded to construct the palace and develop it as museum.

The palace comprising 4 floors, 63 rooms, 2 burjas and 2 galleries was built in 1912 by then General Pratap Shamsher. The government offices were set up in the palace as per the directives of late king Mahendra in 1958.

Rs. 10 million was released last year for the renovation of the palace. However, the expenditure is not transparent, the locals complain. According to CDO Panthi, the sum allocated last year was spent during the same year in the reconstruction of the destroyed District Police office, Jail, Audit Control Office among other and cleansing the palace premises.

However, locals complain that nothing has been done besides the construction of jail and police office. Though the DoA has sent directives not to make any changes or utilization of historical remains of the palace, the bricks and timber of the palace have been already used with the decision of Deputy Superintendent of Police Chabilala joshi and CDO Panthi putting forward the logic that they used the materials before they would become useless.