Portion of Old Jail Khana Collapses

Hyderabad:A portion of the 200-year-old Old Jail Khana at Monda Market collapsed due to incessant rains on Tuesday evening. As a result eight tailoring shops, a tailoring material shop, scrap merchant’s shop and one mechanic shop were completely destroyed and all their machines, tools and other materials were reduced to debris.

Fortunately, there were no casualties, although a 61-one-year old tailor, Mulguru Jeevan, who was at work, sustained toe injury as he could not come out swiftly.

Vavilala Anuradha, a nearby resident and eyewitness narrated, “It was at around 4 pm that the building started cracking and was leaning. In the next 20 minutes, the entire structure collapsed.”

Vijay Bhasker, one of the shop owners said, “We all were busy in our shops when suddenly cracks appeared. As we feared that it was about to collapse, we all ran out of our shops.”

Pornachander explained, “All our machinery and material in the shops have been gutted. This is the only source of income for us.”

As for the 71-year-old Vinod Kumar, “I took over this shop from my father around sixty years back. It is same with many of the 61 shops that are housed in this building. This is GHMC property and we pay monthly rental to the civic body.”

Narsingh Rao, another victim, urged the government, “we request the authorities to reconstruct the shops, so that we can have our livelihood. The tailoring season has just started. Our earnings are mostly during the festival season that runs till the New Year.”

Meanwhile, GHMC deputy commissioner Sammaya, said “the revenue department will look into the compensation part. Inspection of the other buildings will be done soon by structural engineers. There will be re-allotment to those who lost shops.”

This British era jail was built in 1826 on monolithic granite and lime stone. Later it was turned into a commercial complex.

Last year in May the BRS government proposed to give facelift to this heritage structure on the lines of the step-well at Bansilalpet.