A view of the picturesque Tagore Hill in Ranchi, where ITDC is going to spend Rs 2 crore to give the picnic-spot a facelift. A Telegraph file picture

Ranchi, Oct. 3: Nobody is questioning it yet, but Rs 2 crore allegedly being spent on giving Tagore Hill a facelift could well snowball into a public scandal, although it is the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) which is in charge of the execution.

The tourism department claims to have spent Rs 1 crore on building the gate, the stairs, a toilet and platforms or view-points. Where the money went is not clear though.

The department is all set to spend another crore on an art gallery and a museum. Whether the hill is the right place for the gallery is a question that has not been addressed.

Rabindranath Tagore of course never set foot in Ranchi; therefore there is no question of the great poet composing his poems sitting on what is known as Tagore Hill. But that is the folklore that has been assiduously associated with the hill.

What is known, however, is that the poet?s brother, Jyotirindranath Tagore, bought the hill and built a house for himself mid-way up the hill. At the top he had a stone-platform prepared and a canopy put over it. It commanded a panoramic view and the serenity must have appealed to him as there was virtually no houses around it for miles together.

According to available records, Jyotirindranath built the house in 1912 and lived there till 1925, or somewhere till that time. The house changed hands after his death and for decades was used as a lodge by college-going students.

Jyotirindranath himself was no mean writer, musician and scholar. He knew several foreign languages and is known to have translated even French poetry. But with fact and fiction getting blurred over Tagore Hill, nobody appears to have given any thought to use the hill for perpetuating the memory of Jyotirindranath.

As long as there was open space all around it, Tagore Hill remained a pleasant picnic-spot. People would cook at the foothill while couples and children would climb up and down, sit on the rocks or have some quiet time together. Even for solitary visitors, the hill afforded a view and solitude.

All that has come to an end with the mad scramble for construction, most of which, one suspect, is illegal. With houses now embracing the hill almost, it is no longer possible to have picnics. With curious, prying eyes peering from all the houses, which in any case have robbed the view, it is no longer a pleasant, leisurely walk to the top.

The department has made a monstrosity of a gate, which was really not needed. It has introduced tickets but would not disclose how many tickets are actually sold.

Ajay Jain of the Society for Preservation of Tribal Culture and Natural Beauty accuses the tourism department of commercialising the hill. Tourism secretary S.K. Choudhary rubbishes the charge and points out that the department is only arranging for basic facilities, like lighting and so on, before handing over the management to a committee headed by the deputy commissioner.

But Jain claims to be scandalised. Imagine, he says, a toilet next to the kusum tree below which Jyotirindranath used to sit.