The restoration of the Pensionnat De Jeunes Filles, French girls’ high school run by the Puducherry Government on the Beach Road, remains incomplete.
| Photo Credit: KUMAR SS

Irked over the inordinate delay in the completion of the reconstruction of Pensionnat De Jeunes Filles, a heritage school building on the Beach Road, the Puducherry Smart City Development Limited (PSCDL) cancelled the work order issued to the contractor. It, instead, issued a fresh order to NBCC (India) Ltd., a Central government undertaking, to complete the work by August this year.

The foundation stone for the reconstruction of Pensionnat De Jeunes Filles — India’s only French girls high school run by the Puducherry government — was laid in February 2023. The work was supposed to be completed in March 2025.

According to a PSCDL official, the decision to terminate the contract followed a failure by the contractor, who was awarded the work by the Public Works Department (PWD), in finishing it on time, despite extension of deadlines and a revised estimate.

“When the contractor was about to begin the work, there was pressure from the Puducherry government to change the building design as they wanted a part of the original space to be diverted for commercial purpose. The work got delayed due to various reasons, including approval for the revised building design and subsequent slow pace of work by the contractor. Finally, PSCDL terminated the contract and has now awarded it to NBCC (India) Ltd.”

The two-storey French architecture-styled building, which remained in a precarious condition, was provisionally shut down along with two other government schools that functioned out of heritage buildings in 2014, after the collapse of the 144-year-old Marie (Town Hall) building on the Beach Promenade.

In the 1980s, the school faced a different a kind of danger when there was a proposal to demolish it to create space for a government building. There were protests, and parents and teachers submitted a petition to the government to preserve the structure. The then Lt. Governor, T.P. Tiwari, passed an order in 1984 to save the school from being razed.

Historical significance

The grade IIA heritage building is constructed in the French architectural style, with a colonnaded portico, a teak staircase, and a wooden-louvered shutter.

The Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles was the Bedier house before the Second French Empire. In 1858, it was rented out and then sold to the colony to house a school for European girls. Classes were taught by the nuns of a Catholic order. The site was chosen on the sea-side for sanitary and health reasons, according to Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage.

The building was donated by Smith family, who wished for the building to be used as a school for girls. Today it is the only French medium school for girls in the country. After it was closed in 2014, the students were shifted to another school on Mission Street.