Through the Eye of MCD: Delhi’s Town Hall Journal Returns After Seventy Years

After being discontinued for more than 70 years, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has revived The Town Hall Journal, its official journal. The municipal body’s heritage cell debuted the journal’s first issue on Tuesday. The bimonthly, multilingual periodical is available in print and digital forms on the corporation’s website. An important turning point in the history of the city’s journey is this resurrection.

The Town Hall Journal will explore the history of the city and provide insight into its system of government during the last 160 years. Senior municipal officials who are acquainted with the project told the Hindustan Times that the magazine would also include the city’s ancient structures, illustrating Delhi’s rich cultural legacy.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi hopes to promote and protect the city’s cultural legacy by providing readers with a window into the past while embracing the present through this magazine. The purpose of The Town Hall Journal is to inform, educate, and involve the community in the architectural wonders and historical importance that characterize Delhi’s environment. The MCD guarantees greater accessibility and dissemination by providing this journal in both conventional and new forms, encouraging a closer relationship with the city’s history.

The publication’s name comes from the Town Hall building in Chandni Chowk, which served as the municipality’s previous headquarters and was constructed in the 1860s as the “Delhi Institute.” The Institute Journal was initially published by the local administration in 1861 (when the Town Hall building was known as the Delhi Institute), but it was later stopped. The municipality also stopped publishing Rajdhani, a weekly periodical that it had begun publishing in 1952 after independence.

Rajdhani was published out of the former press building, which lies near the main Town Hall complex, according to the HT article. It was published weekly and was available in Urdu, Hindi, and English.