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Bad days for Kolkata's Great Eastern Hotel
by Ajitha Menon

     Kolkata: It was once one of Kolkata's key heritage sites because of its glorious past and priceless artefacts, but today the Great Eastern Hotel is shorn of all of its glory and the brunt of this malaise is being borne by its erstwhile employees. Most of the grand hotel's employees are finding it hard to make ends meet and they claim that the state government has been apathetic to their plight. It all started after the 165-year-old hotel was sold to a Delhi- based hotelier, Lalit Suri for Rs.52 crores. Hotel employees were directed to accept a separation package arranged by the State Government through financial aid from Britain's DFID (Department for International Development) as the Government made it clear that it could not sustain a rupee four crore loss per annum. The over 400 hotel employees, who opted for a voluntary retirement scheme, have complained that the employer and the government is yet to pay their dues. "The workers had signed on 30th of June but we have no knowledge of a settlement till date. We have been told that it should be over by August or else the money will go back to DFID (Department for International Development). But where has the DFID fund gone? The Left Front Government has siphoned off all the money," says Moinul Islam, an employee of Great Eastern Hotel. "Now, they are saying that the workers will get their due once Lalit Suri pays off. Our settlement is not clear yet. We were told that it will be final by September 30. Leaders assured that it will be over by November 30. But there is no sign of it yet. We do not know what will happen to our money," says Moinul.

    In 1963, Queen Elizabeth and her entourage were put up at Great Eastern Hotel. During that time silver cutlery and dinner sets were imported from England. The dinner plates, spoons, forks, bowls, butter plates, serving trays are still lying inside the cupboards of the hotel storeroom. During its days of glory, the hotel never used glass crockery. Lunch and dinner was served on bronze dishes alongwith gold- plated silver cutlery. At present there are 500 silver dinner sets and thousands of silver forks, goblets and bowls. All rooms were decorated with bronze candles and incense stick stands. There are as many as 250 bronze ashtrays, 179 butter containers and many curio items for decoration and wall-hangings lying idle in the hotel's dusty storeroom. The hotel was constructed by the famous British construction company, Martin Burn, which also constructed Kolkata's landmark Victoria Memorial, in the year 1840 . Old timers say there are 345 teak and mahogany beds, 153 cupboards, 180 writing desks, 448 sofa sets with center tables. All table tops are either decorated with Kashimiri woodcrafts or with marble carvings. "This building has been declared as a heritage property because there is one community under the Calcutta Municipal Corporation Act. It decides which of the buildings should be declared as a heritage building. It is done on the basis of timings like how old these buildings are? How they have been constructed. All these factors are taken into consideration and afterwards they are declared as heritage buildings," says Jagannath Bag, an Executive Officer with the Great Eastern.
-Nov 28, 2005

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