As part of the Heritage Walk initiative inaugurated by chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday evening opened the gates of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) for public viewing. 

This initiative is a joint venture of the civic body and the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) and involves guided tours through the building, with story-telling sessions about its historic and architectural significance.

The 128- year-old headquarters, was completed in 1893, and the building has been constructed in the Venetian Gothic, Indo-Saracenic style.

The heritage tours will commence this weekend, with four batches of 15 people each. Two batches are scheduled to visit the headquarters at 4pm and 5.30pm on Saturday, and two batches will visit at 9am and 10.30am on Sunday. Tourists can book the tour on bookmyshow.com, an e-commerce website, that MTDC has tied up with for the initiative. Following this week’s take off, every subsequent week will have eight batches, depending on the offtake. Each tour will cost ?300 per person.

The patrons will gather at the selfie-point outside the headquarters, opposite the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT station), and commence the tour. A historian will take tourists through the main staircase of the building, the heritage dome, courtyard, inner courtyard, the corporation hall, the mayor’s chamber, commissioner’s office, and the standing committee hall. The tour will conclude at the museum, where photos and videos of the building are on display.

Khaki Tourism, a city-based heritage tourism firm, has been appointed for curating the tours. Bharat Gothoskar, a history enthusiast and the founder of Khaki Tours, said, “Throughout the tour we will narrate 20 to 25 different stories.”

The tours have been named Urbs Prima which means primary city in Latin. There is a statue of an angel with an outstretched arm atop the main entrance of the BMC building. Explaining the significance of the statue, Gothoskar said, “She represents colonial Bombay, and has a phrase carved in stone that reads Urbs Prima in Indis. This line is in Latin, and was coined in 1860s. It means Primary City in India. We have hence named the tour Urbs Prima.”

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