Secunderabad Clock Tower is a

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another build ...

located in the

Secunderabad Secunderabad, also spelled as Sikandarabad (, ), is a twin city of Hyderabad and one of the six zones of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) in the Indian state of Telangana. It is the headquarters of the South Central Railway ...

region of

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

, India. Constructed in 1860 on of land, the structure was inaugurated on 1 February 1897.

History

firman A firman ( fa, , translit=farmân; ), at the constitutional level, was a royal mandate or decree issued by a sovereign in an Islamic state. During various periods they were collected and applied as traditional bodies of law. The word firman com ...

issued by

Nizam The Nizams were the rulers of Hyderabad from the 18th through the 20th century. Nizam of Hyderabad (Niẓām ul-Mulk, also known as Asaf Jah) was the title of the monarch of the Hyderabad State ( divided between the state of Telangana, Mar ...

Sikandar Jah established the city of

after his name in 1806. To honour the progress achieved by the

British officers British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

stationed at

Secunderabad Cantonment Secunderabad, also spelled as Sikandarabad (, ), is a twin city of Hyderabad and one of the six zones of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) in the Indian state of Telangana. It is the headquarters of the South Central Railwa ...

, the erstwhile

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established of land for this purpose in 1860. A 120-ft high clock tower was constructed in a park of in 1896. The tower was inaugurated by Resident Sir Trevor John Chichele Plowden on 1 February 1897. The clock on the tower was donated by Dewan Bahadur Seth Lachmi Narayan Ramgopal, a businessman. In 2003, the tower was placed on a demolition list drawn up by the

Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, commonly known as the GHMC is the civic body that oversees Hyderabad, the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It is the local government for the cities of Hyderabad and Secund ...

to accommodate the increasing traffic. A senior official at this civic agency of the

Government of Andhra Pradesh Government of Andhra Pradesh, abbreviated as, GOAP, or, Andhra Government, is the subnational government for the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is an elected government with 175 MLAs elected to the Legislative Assembly of Andhra Pradesh f ...

said that they were trying their best not to demolish this structure. In 2006, the park housing the tower was chosen for renovation by the same agency. Carried out at a cost of , the park's size was reduced to widen the roads. In addition, the tower was renovated, the park was landscaped with lawns and hedges, and a waterfall was installed. The renovation was completed in 2005, and the park was inaugurated by then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy in 2006. A martyr's memorial was also established inside the park in memory of the first police firing in 1969 during a separate Telangana agitation. Within a year after this, two of the tower's four clocks experienced technical problems and stopped working. The tower was declared a heritage structure in the twin cities of

. It was as a result of the efforts put by the civic agency at sites like this tower that the proposal to seek UNESCO Heritage status for

was revived. In 2006, the 200-year celebrations of the formation of

were organised by the Government of Andhra Pradesh. The clock tower was chosen as the subject of the logo, which was designed by a local firm. The outline of the Clock Tower was first conceived by the students of a city architectural college. A short cinema film of 9 minutes, 30 seconds by director

Mani Shankar Mani Shankar is a Bollywood film director, holographic technology expert, writer and speaker. He is best known for introducing computer-generated imagery to India, and for designing the world's first holographic political campaign, which he ...

was released as a part of this celebration. The film, which relates the history of the city, features the clock tower in it. The park housing the tower also served as a venue for promoting various citizen-centric events such as a children's film festival, awareness programs among others.

References

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External links

13 Historical Clock Towers of Hyderabad
Towers completed in 1897 Tourist attractions in Hyderabad, India Tourist attractions in Telangana Clock towers in India Heritage structures in Hyderabad, India