Raj Niwas, Pondicherry

Raj Nivas is the official residence of the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry. It is located in Puducherry's capital city of Pondicherry. The present lieutenant governor of Puducherry is Dr. Kiran Bedi. Once it was the official residence of the French Governors.A Brief StoryLe Palais Du governor now called the Raj Nivas is situated surrounded by the Rue Jawaharlal Nehru on the North, Rue De Rangapoule on the South and Rue Saint Louis on the East and Rue Francois Martin on the West with access from the north and south. The Governor’s House has a history of its own. Pierre Benoît Dumas, the French Governor for Pondicherry, laid the foundation for a Governor’s palace in 1738 but the palace had to wait for the arrival of Joseph François Dupleix to see its completion. When Jean Law de Lauriston took over Pondicherry in 1765 the town was completely in ruins. Within a short span of three years a whole new town sprang up on the ruins of the old - the Governor’s Palace and the administration offices on the north, the warehouses on the south, the military barracks on the east and west.ArchitectureThe new House of the Governor was built on the former site of the Hotel de la Compaigne which was the origin of the present Raj Nivas. Initially, the Governor's House was built in the French Baroque style but it was destroyed in the year 1761 by the British. Later, the building was rebuilt in the Rococo style from 1766 onwards. The Raj Nivas was a rectangular, single storied structure running east to west with porticoes on either side of the flanked by two other rectangular wings on the east and west. It was later converted into a double storied House.