Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’ house. Picture by Prakush Pal

Chinsurah, March 18: Vande Mataram, penned by novelist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, is the country’s national song but the house he wrote it in is nowhere on the state government’s radar.

The state heritage commission has asked the government for Rs 30 lakh to restore the nearly 200-year-old single-storeyed house — locally known as Vande Mataram Bhavan — at Joraghat in Hooghly’s Chinsurah.

“We submitted a proposal on this score to the state government a fortnight ago. When we get the fund, we will ask the CMDA (Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority) to restore the house keeping its original structure intact,” commission chairman Pratap Chandra Chunder said.

The building, bought by the government in 1996, has been unoccupied for the last 12 years since it ceased to be the office of the information and cultural affairs department.

Situated on a bigha on the banks of the Hooghly, the building’s main gate has fallen apart and walls are agape with wide cracks. The neighbourhood fears it will collapse as trees and plants have sprouted all over.

Worse, “the building had become a shelter for local anti-socials who turned it into a drinking and gambling den”, said resident Kalipada Basu

District magistrate Roshni Sen agreed urgent repairs were needed. “We called an all-party meeting in January as we felt this historic building should be preserved as heritage. Everyone present agreed and so we sent a proposal in this regard to the state heritage commission.”

Bankim Chandra also wrote Krishnakanter Will and Rajani in the same house.