Within 24 hours, UP Haj office wall gets back its original shade

LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Haj Committee office boundary wall, which was painted saffron on Friday, was repainted cream (its original colour) within 24 hours.

The colour change on Friday kicked up a controversy even as the government officer-incharge of the committee blamed the contractor for the change and ordered action against him.

RP Singh, chief executive officer and secretary of committee, told HT on Saturday: “We had asked the contractor to paint the building in the colour matching the nearby buildings.”

When asked what colour the boundary wall was painted now, Singh said: “Cream”.

Singh also issued a press note on Saturday, which says that the contractor was negligent in “painting the wall in a bit darker shade than what was approved.”

Further in the press note, Singh said he took “immediate cognizance of the negligence by the contractor in colouring and maintenance of the building and ordered immediate correction and action against him.”

While the two main buildings near the Haj office — the Vidhan Bhawan and Lok Bhawan (chief minister’s secretariat) are stone structures, the other important building there is the BJP state headquarters that wears exactly the same dark and light shades of saffron that the contractor had coated the Haj office boundary wall with.

The office pertains to facilitation of Haj pilgrimage. The Haj Committee also manages the UP Haj House that is located near the Lucknow airport on Kanpur road.

On Friday the UP Haj minister Mohsin Raza, who often wears a saffron coloured waistcoat, had said: “There is no need for any controversy in such things. Saffron is a bright and energetic colour and it has rendered the building more beautiful. The opposition has no big issues against us, so they raise inconsequential matters as issues.”

In September last year, the state government got its secretariat annexe building in shades of saffron and then launched a rural bus service with saffron coloured buses.