amid greens: “White House” near Ranchi railway station. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Ranchi, Oct. 18: Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) CMD’s official bungalow — Mayfield, called the White House — is on the verge of being disposed of. The reason: It’s not been able to find an occupant since past six years.

Nestled in acres of lush greenery in the heart of the city, Mayfield is lying abandoned since 2001. Worse, twigs can be seen sprouting from the walls and roofs of the heritage building in front of Ranchi railway station as well.

An income-tax raid on the villa during the stay of its last occupant the then CCL CMD, B. Akla, in 2001, is said to have turned the bungalow jinxed.

Seeing none of the CMDs keen on living there after Akla was transferred in 2001, CCL is gearing up to sell it to its sister concern — Coal Mining Provident Fund (CMPF) office.

Akla’s predecessors, including M.A. Ubaid and S.C. Khera, lived in Mayfield.

But his successors — S.K. Varma, M.K. Thapar, J.P. Sharma, Ajay Kumar (officiating) and even the present incumbent, R.P. Ritolia — preferred small houses in Jawahar Nagar Colony on Kanke Road to the spacious bungalow, which has 11 big rooms, a doghouse, servant quarters, three garages and an impressive driveway flanked by lush greenery. However, none of them has admitted the jinx as the reason for not opting for Mayfield to stay.

Ritolia says Mayfield is too big for him. “I have never lived in it. It is far away too. Besides as per my requirement, I preferred the Jawahar Nagar house,” he said. The CCL CMD was non-committal on the jinx attached with the bungalow, but said talks were on to hand over the bungalow to CMPF.

Senior CCL officials said that the process to sell Mayfield to CMPF is on and the cost of the bungalow is being evaluated. The plan to dispose of the mansion was afoot during Thapar’s tenure. Then, Mayfield was about to be sold to any government organisation and talks were also held with many central government organisations, but barring CMPF none evinced interest in it, they said.

The coal major wants to dispose of the imposing double-storeyed bungalow for Rs 5 crore to set up a directors’/CMD colony, somewhere close to CCL headquarters — Darbhanga House, sources said.

Binod Tuti, a CCL guard deputed at Mayfield, reminisces the heydays of the bungalow when Akla lived. “ The bungalow was properly maintained. Two guards were on duty in three shifts a day. Now, the three guards are the only persons, who come to the bungalow now for the sake of duty,” he said.

Old-timers say that the bungalow belonged to Bengal Nagpur Railway, which also had many coalmines in the region. The bungalow was taken over by the National Coal Development Corporation along with many BNR coalmines in early 1950s.