<i>Uttara Gonobhaban opens to public today</i>
Uttara Gonobhaban at Dighapatia in Natore district is opened for the public from today.
State Minister for Youth and Sports Ahad Ali Sarker is expected to open the gonobhaban (Dighapatia Rajbari) to the visitors at a function in the morning.
Mohammad Zafarullah, deputy commissioner (DC) of Natore, said the gonobhaban will remain open everyday from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.
The visitors can see the impressive beauty of the royal palace, buying ticket for Tk 10, the DC said, adding that a visitor can stay 40 minutes inside the palace compound.
Local administration has installed necessary instruments, including CCTV cameras and metal detector, for security reasons.
Uttara Gonabhaban, which was known as Dighapatia Rajbari during the British and Pakistan periods, was the palace of the Maharajas of Dighapatia. The government is now using the palace as official residence of the head of government of Bangladesh in northern region.
Situated beside the Natore-Bogra highway, some 2.4 kilometres off Natore town, the building is historically and archaeologically important.
Raja Dayaram Roy constructed the main structure of the palace, but Raja Pramada Nath Roy rebuilt the whole palace complex after the catastrophic earthquake in 1897.
The Dighapatia Palace was made Dighapatia Governor House on July 24 in 1967 by the governor of erstwhile East Pakistan. After the country's independence, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared the Dighapatia Governor House as Uttara Gonobhaban on February 9, 1972.
Comments