College Street: Presidency University vice-chancellor Anuradha Lohia and heritage architect Partha Ranjan Das visited Hindu Hostel on Tuesday to review the condition of the heritage structure.
The 131-year-old hostel, a heritage structure, was vacated in July 2015 for renovation. The university authorities recently pledged to wrap up renovation by July 15.
First-year classes will start in August.
Lohia and Das were accompanied by registrar Debajyoti Konar and other officials of the university during the visit.
The visit took place after the project development committee of the university met in the morning to draw up the plans on renovation.
"We discussed the drawings at the meeting. Later, along with VC Anuradha Lohia, we inspected the hostel to find out the extent of damage. Renovation of the three buildings will be done in phases," Das said.
"We will start renovation of Building-I and Building-II simultaneously. We hope to wrap up work in Building-II by July 15. Renovation of Building-I will be over by the end of this year. Then we will start work in Building-III," architect Das said.
In July 2015, the project cost was estimated at Rs 2 crore. The revised estimate is likely to cross Rs 4crore, Das said.
VC Lohia said: "We visited the hostel to decide how we could go about carrying out renovation work."
The hostel comprises three buildings - two constructed by the erstwhile Presidency College authorities and one by the PWD in the 1960s.
Of the three buildings, the one that faces Peary Charan Sarkar Street is called Building-I. It has two blocks.
Building-II is the one that adjoins Darbhanga Bhavan of Calcutta University. It has one block.
Building III - where research scholars used to stay - is the one built by the PWD. It has three blocks.
After the hostel was evacuated, the boarders were shifted to rented accommodations in New Town. Since then, the students who would have been allotted berths in Hindu Hostel, across Peary Charan Sarkar Street from the Presidency campus, are being sent to the rented accommodations.
