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Updated: Jun 24, 2019 23:27 IST

Heritage lovers in Hyderabad are up in arms against the Telangana government’s plans to demolish the 150-year Errum Manzil palace in the heart of the city for the construction of a new legislative assembly building complex, for which the foundation was laid on June 27.

Last week, the Telangana cabinet headed by chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao decided to construct a massive state legislature complex modelled on the lines of Parliament House in New Delhi on the sprawling 17-acre site at an elevated location near Khairatabad at a cost of Rs 100 crore.

“Like in Parliament, there will be a central hall, which will have legislative assembly and legislative council on either side. There will be assembly secretariat and library on the premises which will be beautified with massive lawns and fountains,” the chief minister told reporters after the cabinet meeting.

While the plan appears to be grandiose, what triggered uproar among the heritage lovers was the government’s decision to demolish the existing Errum Manzil palace constructed by Nawab Fakhr-ul-Mulk, one of the nobles of the erstwhile Nizams, the rulers of Hyderabad state, in 1870.

“Fakhr-ul-Mulk was a minister with the Sixth Nizam Mahabub Ali Khan and had constructed beautiful palaces in Hyderabad. The present buildings of Chest Hospital and the Nizam’s College were constructed by him. His descendants gave them away to the then government after 1948, when the Hyderabad state was merged with Indian Union,” heritage activist and secretary of Indian National Trust for Architecture and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) Anuradha Reddy told Hindustan Times.

The Errum Manzil palace, comprising 150 spacious rooms, was built in the Indo-European Baroque style of architecture with full of stucco and ornamental works. “It was constructed on a hillock abutting the highway and was surrounded by full of greenery,” Reddy said.

It even had nine-hole golf course, polo ground, stable for horses and a dairy farm. The palace was used for royal banquets and other grand events. After it was handed over to the government, it was used as an office of Public Works Department and presently, it houses offices of the Engineers-in-chief and the Chief Engineers of the Roads and Buildings and Irrigation and Command Area Development Departments.

“Such buildings are part of our heritage and culture which need to be preserved with all care. How can they be demolished for the fancy of the chief minister to have modern assembly complex?” she asked.

Meanwhile, legal heirs of Fakhr-ul-Mulk wrote a letter to KCR requesting that the Errum Manzil palace be preserved as a heritage monument. “Nawab Fakhrul Mulk Bahadur, an eminent noble of Hyderabad, who built the palace was awarded a status of Umara-e-Uzzamin, in the hierarchy of the Nizam of erstwhile Hyderabad state,” Nawab Shafath Ali Khan, the Secretary of the Nawab Fakhrul Mulk Legal Heirs Association, said in the letter.

He pointed out that Errum Manzil was a historical monument and was visited by top British dignitaries including the Viceroy of India. “This beautiful structure is very much part of Hyderabad’s history, culture and heritage,” Khan said.

The heirs also pointed out that the palace had served as the Public Works Department office for decades and had become a known landmark in the city.