Calcutta, June 1: Split air-conditioners may yet achieve what the threat of strict punishment has failed to do: boost attendance at Writers’ Buildings.

Finance minister Asim Dasgupta announced today that the whole of Writers’ would soon be wired for cool comfort, giving in to employee protests that spread from floor to floor across the four-storeyed seat of power where files go cold irrespective of the weather.

“We have taken note of the problems being faced by employees in working without air-conditioning in summer. Writers’ is more congested than it was some years ago, and that is adding to the heat,” said Dasgupta, whose first-floor department witnessed a no-AC-no-work flash strike in the morning.

Employees of the correctional services department on the third floor, who had staged a demonstration last Wednesday demanding ACs, did a repeat later in the day.

The agitation for air-conditioning had begun early last month with PWD employees trooping out of their offices and refusing to return unless their offices were fitted with ACs. The strike apparently drew PWD minister Kshiti Goswami’s sympathy, who promptly got five 1.5 tonne split ACs installed in the three rooms where his team sits.

“If the PWD employees are working in air-conditioned offices, why should we be suffering?” demanded a judicial department employee on the same floor as the Celsius rose a notch above normal at 36.2 degrees maximum and humidity hovered between 62 and 88 per cent.

Minister Dasgupta insisted that the decision to install ACs in all offices at Writers’ in phases was not a knee-jerk reaction to today’s protests. “We have had this in mind for quite some time,” he said.

Chief secretary Ardhendu Sen and home secretary Samar Ghosh had gone around Writers’ while the city was voting in the municipal polls on Sunday “to gauge the heat” on different floors and draw up an air-conditioning plan, sources said.

PWD minister Goswami said he would speak to CESC officials tomorrow to find out the technical implications of installing ACs in all the offices. “I am told two large rooms are required for a transformer, which is difficult to find in Writers’. Moreover, the entire wiring would needs to be changed,” he added.

Finance minister Dasgupta said the cost of air-conditioning Writers’ would be huge but declined to cite a figure. “I have asked my officials to draw up an estimate,” he added.