Bhubaneswar, April 16: The ancestral property and the house built by Madhusudan Das, one of the greatest leaders of the state, will see brighter days shortly.

The Indian National Trust For Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) has taken the onus of restoring the monuments that were wallowing in neglect at his village Satyabhamapur and beautifying the surroundings of the houses.

The Telegraph had highlighted the plight of the houses where the “architect of modern Odisha”, also known as Utkal Gourav, was born and grew up in (see graphic).

Under the integral development plan, Intach will repair the walls and roofs of Das’s ancestral property that have developed numerous cracks. A full-fledged restoration process will follow.

“We are almost ready with an integral plan for the facelift of the two houses — Das’s birthplace and the one he built in the same village after his father asked him to move out for converting to Christianity,” said Mallika Mitra, director of the Bhubaneswar chapter of Intach.

“Immediate restoration is needed in the kitchen of Das’s house, which is a priority in the plan,” she added.

The Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust has maintained the houses for the past 68 years.

“It is an advantage that the trust had taken good care of the property by keeping it clean and, at least, in recoverable shape. But there are many technical intricacies that need to be taken into account to keep the houses safe since these are old buildings,” said Mitra.

Intach will keep the original design intact, but after repairs and restoration, the surroundings will be beautified under a detailed landscaping project.

The two water bodies surrounding the two houses will also be renovated.

“The original look will be maintained and the ambience retained. But we will give it the look of a tourist site with well-designed gardens. Sadly, a few new structures have come up around Das’s birthplace and we cannot remove them. But we will ensure that it becomes a site worth visiting. For this, we have also come up with a maintenance plan,” Mitra said.

The integral plan for development of Das’s houses will be presented to the state government by the end of this month. The project will, however, take more than a year to complete.

Intach has repaired many ancient temples and monuments in the state.

This is the second project by the trust to preserve a leader’s private house after restoring Subhash Chandra Bose’s birthplace, the Janki Nath Bhavan, into Netaji Birthplace Museum in Cuttack.

Das’s footprints were slowly vanishing from the annals of history. Even many children of Satyabhamapur village were unaware of the freedom fighter and poet, who played a pioneering role in carving out Odisha as a separate state.

Local residents lamented the lack of government attention the village got.

“We lack basic amenities such as regular water supply, electricity connection, street lighting and health care. There is acute water shortage. Electric poles that were erected a few years ago are lying defunct. The health care centre has neither a doctor nor an ambulance. There is not even a college within 10km. These problems in Madhu babu’s village have never attracted the attention of the government,” said a defence worker and local resident on condition of anonymity.

Earlier, the villagers had alleged that of all chief ministers, only Naveen Patnaik never cared to visit the village, whereas his father Biju Patnaik had even worshipped the soil outside Das’s house.

In January, Bharati Ghose, a member of the Kasturba Gandhi National Memorial Trust, had told The Telegraph: “The trust has been taking care of the monuments belonging to the leader. But, we have not received any help ever to keep the old buildings safe or make the property a special site or museum.”

The local residents had then said that though various events were organised throughout the year in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar to pay tributes to Das, Satyabhamapur had been completely forgotten.

“The government has not even installed his statue here. He was the first graduate from the state, but it is ironical that even after 76 years of Odisha’s independence, Satyabhamapur does not have a single high school. Das set up a lower primary school (now a minor school, up to Class VII) here, but at night, one can find goats and cows tied up inside the classrooms,” Manmohan Samal, a farmer, said.

“Three months after Madhu babu’s death, Gandhiji had come to Satyabhamapur and spent the night on Madhu babu’s terrace. Great men have been here, which makes the place an important part of history,” said octogenarian Anam Chandra Samal, a retired headmaster of the school founded by Das.