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The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) is call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to take ur­gent steps to re­store the Li­on House, an icon­ic sym­bol of In­di­an in­den­ture­ship lo­cat­ed in Ch­agua­nas. The his­toric struc­ture, which has fall­en in­to dis­re­pair since the death of its own­er Suren Capildeo in 2016, was the home of No­bel Lau­re­ate Sir V.S. Naipaul and promi­nent­ly fea­tured in his nov­el A House for Mr Biswas.

The ap­peal was made by CCIC Pres­i­dent Bal­dath Ma­haraj dur­ing the Cham­ber’s In­di­an Ar­rival Day cel­e­bra­tion held on Thurs­day at the Pas­sage to Asia Restau­rant.

De­scrib­ing the site as a na­tion­al trea­sure, he urged res­o­lu­tion of any on­go­ing is­sues that may be de­lay­ing restora­tion ef­forts. “As res­i­dents of Ch­agua­nas we are ask­ing for the restora­tion of this na­tion­al trea­sure, and it is. I want to call on the gov­ern­ment and the Capildeo fam­i­ly to re­solve any is­sues pre­vent­ing this. We must ho­n­our this her­itage just as Britain ho­n­oured Shake­speare’s birth­place.”