The West Bengal government has allocated Rs 32 lakh for restoration of the dilapidated birthplace and ancestral house of legendary Bengali writer Tarashankar Bandopadhyay at Labhpur in Birbhum.

On the occasion of the 121 st birth anniversary of Tarashankar Bandopadhyay (23 July), the sabhadipati of Birbhum Zilla Parishad, Bikash Roy Choudhury has announced that the house ~ Dhatridebata ~ will be restored at a cost of Rs 32 lakh.

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The State Bangla Academy organised a programme on the occasion of Tarashankar Bandopadhyay’s 121 st birth anniversary at his birthplace at Labhpur where his grandson, Amalshankar Bandopadhyay, and Bangla Academy representatives Goutam Bandopadhyay, Jaya Mitra etc were present.

Satyajit Ray’s film Jalsaghar was screened at the Fullora auditorium in Labhpur on the occasion. Later in the evening, a drama was staged at Dhatridebata.

An initiative to restore the 250-year-old Dhatridebata was launched during the Left Front regime, with the project given to Labhpur panchayat samity but it failed to take off.

In 2015, the Labhpur Panchayat Samity handed over the work to Birbhum Sanskriti Bahini. Slowly restoration work had started since then as the state government has set up guest houses and boundary walls have been erected surrounding the building.

Secretary of the Birbhum Sanskriti Bahini, Mr Ujjwal Mukherjee said the state government has already provided a fund of Rs 32 lakh and they want the restoration work to commence very soon.

At present, the building is in ramshackle condition and the back walls of the building along with the ceilings are damaged.

Tarashankar Bandopadhyay had written 65 novels, 53 books, 12 plays, 4 essay books, four autobiographies and two travel stories. He had also directed the Bengali feature film Amrapali in 1959 and had been awarded with Jnanpith, Padma Bhusan, Sahitya Academy and Padma Shri.

One of the most popular writers in Bengali literature, Tarashankar Bandopadhyay and Satyajit Ray have worked together on two Bengali films including the famous movie Jalsaghar.

Bengali matinee idol Uttam Kumar has also acted in many movies, the scripts of which were written by Tarashankar Bandopadhay or based on his stories ~ films like Saptapadi, Har Mana Har, Dui Purush, Bipasha, Bicharak, Raikamal etc.

Bandopadhyay passed away on 14 September 1971 at the age of 73 in Kolkata.