Illuminated Raj Bhavan in Kolkata.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

A man whose day job is to produce annual reports for listed and unlisted companies has now voluntarily produced an annual report for something he has been doing at night: lighting up heritage buildings in Kolkata so that the city’s history is visible round the clock.

Sixty-two structures illuminated in exactly 14 months — about one historic building a week — that’s what Mudar Patherya has to show in the annual report of The Kolkata Restorers, the one-man initiative that has been brightening the city’s evenings along with its past entirely through crowdfunding.

The buildings include Raj Bhavan, the residence of the West Bengal Governor. “One of the grandest residences in this part of the world being illuminated with crowdfunding represents a huge shift in government engagement. Citizen funding and citizen accountability is a new model for heritage in the city and possibly the country. We have done the job at a cost considerably lower than peers and at a pace considerably faster,” Mr. Patherya told The Hindu.

His aim is to illuminate 125 buildings in all by the end of 2025. The ones lit up so far include those that define the heritage landscape of Kolkata such as the General Post Office, St. James Church, Standard Assurance building, and St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Mr. Patherya said he brought out a report because he believed he was accountable and what he was doing was reportable. “It may be my initiative, but the entire city is my stakeholder. The initiative has a public fallout, it has a general fallout, it has a universal fallout,” he said.

The project began in November 2023 in what he calls a “funny, unintended way”. “I had got a dome painted in Maniktala market, the impact of which I found was lost in the evening. I thought the only way I can redeem this is if I can illuminate it, and that had a transformative effect,” the heritage activist said.

So far, the project, supported by 163 donors, has cost ₹1.33 crore, with the illumination of each building costing about ₹2.25 lakh on an average. Of the buildings illuminated so far, 22 are colonial structures, nine are government properties, and 26 are places of worship.

The report stated that the initiative was crowdfunded because it enabled sizeable restoration cost to be divided up across a number of people; it made conservation funding sustainable, and enhanced public engagement, empowerment and pride.

The illumination, it said, was not only helping the properties attract events but also helping initiate night-time tourism possibilities. “These properties have enhanced neighbourhood pride and respect,” stated the report of The Kolkata Restorers, which not only installs the lights but also maintains them.