Pratap Vilas Palace, Gandhidham

History

The Indian Railway Committee was constituted in 1920, under the chairmanship of Sir William Mitchell Acworth, with 10 members including 3 Indians viz. V. S. Srinivasa Sastri (Elected Member of the Viceroy's Legislative Council), Purshottam Das Thakurdas (representing Indian Commercial Interests) and Sir Rajendra Nath Mookerjee. The committee recommended setting up a Railway Staff College which came up at Dehradun but soon closed down. Later the Indian Military Academy IMA came up on the same campus. The Railway Staff College was re established in 1952 at Pratap Vilas Palace Vadodara built by Maharaja Sayaji Rao for his eldest son Fatehsing Rao. The Palace is adorned by exquisite carvings of Its construction was started on 15 February 1908 in the year when the last ruler of Baroda State, Pratapsingh Rao was born and his father Fatehsing Rao died. Named after Pratapsingh Rao, the palace was designed in the renaissance style by Charles F. Stevens, son of F.W. Stevens, the British architect who designed the Victoria Terminus in Mumbai. The palace complex is built in 55 acres (220,000 m2) of well laid out gardens and wooded land enlivened by the calls of peacocks and migratory birds and adorned by exquisite carvings of creepers, flowers, leaves, birds and animals and noted for its architectural grandeur highlighted with columns and arches. The palace, completed in 1914, also known as Lalbaugh Palace or Prince's Palace, was leased by the then Bombay Government on 31 January 1949 and given to the Railways for their use who subsequently purchased the property on 6 January 1964 for Rs 24,38,271.