The Victoria Memorial Hall: Green concern. A Telegraph picture

Just when the hue and cry over saving the Victoria Memorial Hall from environmental degradation has reached its crescendo, an Act introduced by the British primarily to protect the monument from smoke and soot is completing 100 years.

According to state pollution control board chairman Sudip Banerjee, the Bengal Smoke Nuisance Act, 1905, is not just the oldest environment Act in Asia. ?In all likelihood, it is the second such Act in the world, after the one introduced in England a few years before,? Banerjee said.

The next major environment Act in India ? related to water pollution ?was introduced after almost seven decades, in 1974.

The pollution control board, along with the Memorial authorities, will celebrate the centenary of the Act on the monument compound on May 5.

?The Act, introduced on May 3, 1905, was aimed at tackling what was then a major problem for Calcutta and its suburbs ? smoke menace caused by furnaces and fireplaces. The writ was extended to Howrah, when it emerged as the state?s second hub of industrial activity, and then across the state in 1980,? explained Biswajit Mukherjee, the board?s senior law officer.

?It is quiet clear that the Act was introduced to save the Memorial building. Though the structure was completed around 1912, construction started almost at the turn of the century,? Mukherjee explained.

?The British knew from their experiences back home that smoke and soot could prove disastrous for the white building,? he added.

Unlike many of the laws being enacted now, the Bengal Smoke Nuisance Act was not just on paper. The British were serious about its implementation. An independent smoke nuisances commission was set up under the commissioner of the Presidency Range. Its functioning was supervised by the chief inspector of smoke nuisances.

The commission was later merged with the pollution control board.

?The enforcement of the Act proves how important Calcutta was to the British. Of all cities in the empire, only London had a similar Act,? said law officer Mukherjee, who is also a historian.

There is no record to suggest that the British had considered a similar Act for Delhi, despite its proximity to the Taj Mahal.

Activist Subhas Dutta, however, feels ?celebrating a 100-year-old Act will not absolve the authorities of the crime of neglecting the monument?.

He said: ?Forget about the Act. Even the report of National Environmental Engineering Research Institute have been lying in cold storage for the past 12 years. The authorities don?t have the will to save a part of Calcutta?s cherished history.?