Patna's Vidyut Bhavan now has a cafe with interiors made from scrap and metal

'The Energy Cafe' in Patna is making news everywhere with its innovative sense of furniture and decoration. The cafe owners here are using old oil drums as chairs and tables, a portion of an old Ambassador car as a sofa and the control panel of an unused power sub-station as a table. The Vidyut Bhavan in the electricity department office of Patna now has a fully remodelled coffee shop, which contains the old scrap collected from the dump yard of the Bihar state energy department.

In this cafe, a few unused parts of an old bicycle that was used by the employees of the electricity department are being utilised for a signboard. An old Ambassador car that was in use until 2001 by the Bihar State Electricity Board Secretary is now renovated and remodelled to be used as an elevated sofa. The control panel of the power sub-station is made intact with nuts and bolts, and a glass top is installed on it to make a perfect table. The oil drums from old transformers were made into green chairs and tables.The insulators are used as seats with cushions and the benches, redesigned from wood and scrap metal. The menu board was modelled from wood, made from cable rolls. An unused portion of wood has been turned into a wall clock. The dustbins, which are going to be set up soon, are also made from scrap.

Pratyaya Amrit, the Principal Secretary of the energy department, told The Indian Express, "We noticed a lot of scrap lying in the dump yard for years. As we had been planning to restart our staff canteen to serve subsidised food, we decided to do something out-of-the-box. The idea was to transform, while keeping the energy intact." He also said that a couple from Patna helped them with the supply of redesigned furniture from scrap.

Amrit said, "Manjeet Singh and Neha Singh, both Patna residents, redesigned the scrap into furniture. All the decorative items on the walls have also been made from scrap. The items that were consigned to our dump yard have now found pride of place in the energy cafe." The area of the cafe is 1,800 square feet, and it was inaugurated last week. Having blocked it for a private party, Amrit says that they are looking to turn the cafe into a profitable venture rather than just a showpiece.

The theme is 'energy', and the energy department is offering a mix of organic food, tea and coffee. With the intention of increasing the energy levels of the people visiting it, the department has settled on a menu with four varieties of tea, including the famous masala tea of Bihar.

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