Finally,revised heritage list out

Four years after an exhaustive exercise was carried out to revise Mumbais heritage list to include 948 monuments,structures and precincts to the existing 588 sites,the BMC has finally published the revised list.

Written by Shalini Nair

August 20, 2012 02:22 AM IST

4 min read

The publication of the list gives a much-needed impetus to the citys heritage conservation movement,especially in view of the fact that the BMC had relegated it to the cold storage all these years.

V Ranganathan,the chairman of the newly appointed Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee (MHCC),said suggestions and objections have been invited from the public until the end of this month. At the end of it,the BMC will send the report to the state government that will have to notify the list, said Ranganathan.

The revised list was drawn up by a team of heritage experts and submitted to the MHCC in 2005. The MHCC visited each site to verify its heritage value and in 2008 sent a detailed report to the Urban Development Department (UDD) with an appeal that either the state or the BMC should immediately publish the list. Three months later,the UDD directed the BMC to publish the list and since then it was left to gather dust.

The city will now have to pay a price for the four-year delay as heritage activists fear that in the absence of the heritage tag many of the proposed sites have already been pulled down or modified. It has been brought to my notice that a large number of these structures could have been altered. We have asked the BMC to provide information on all such cases, said Ranganathan. Between 2005 and 2008,a lot of the proposed structures have been demolished for constructing highrises as in the case of actor Dilip Kumars Pali Hill bungalow. In other cases,some structures have been renovated to such an extent that they had to be struck off the list by the time the MHCC carried out the physical verification. One significant example is the Mantralaya building at Nariman Point. Similarly,many quaint bungalows and cottages spread across Bandra-Khar,Dadars Hindu Colony,Parsi Colony and Shivaji Park and Napean Sea Road have been razed owing to the lure of real estate.

The BMC should send the published list along with the suggestions and objections and its report on the modified structures to the state government without further delay. Already many of the proposed sites have fallen. Also proposed precincts such as Marine Drive need to be included in the list, said Pankaj Joshi,executive director of the Urban Design Research Institute that has been campaigning for the publication of the revised list.

While the BMC has neglected the revised heritage list,the state government has been dragging its feet on notifying the revised heritage regulations that give incentive to conservation through grants and property tax rebate and proposes punitive action against those who damage such properties.

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Ranganathan added that the MHCC will take up the issue of heritage regulations in its next meeting and pursue it with the government.

Additions

The citys original heritage list only had structures from the island city up to Mahim and Sion

The new list not only has monuments and precincts from the island city,eastern and western suburbs but also includes bungalows,neo-classical and art deco cinema houses,forts,caves,temples,statues,bridges,ponds and 23 open spaces