New Delhi, India – A plan to demolish part of a 130-year-old library to construct a flyover is being widely slammed in India.
Authorities in the eastern Indian state of Bihar are contemplating razing the front part of the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, located in the heart of the state capital, Patna.
The move has triggered outrage among academics and conservationists, with dozens of the city’s prominent intellectuals urging the state government to preserve the heritage structure.
The Bihar government’s bridge construction department wants to build a $50m 2.2km (1.3-mile) flyover in order to resolve traffic congestion in the state’s main city and has sought a no-objection certificate from the library.