Take steps to add more monuments: Telangana high court to govt.

Source – deccanchronicle.com

Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court asked the Centre and state governments why they had taken no steps to add to the number of protected monuments of national importance in the state and particularly in Hyderabad.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice A. Abhishek Reddy directed the two governments and the archaeology department to explain within four weeks.

The court found fault with the state government for not issuing a fresh list of protected monuments of state importance and the monuments that need to be protected after the Telangana Heritage (Protection, Preservation, Conservation and Maintenance) Act, 2017, came into force. The Act mandates that the government notify state-protected monuments based on the recommendations of the Heritage Conservation Committee.

“There are so many monuments and structures in and around the Hyderabad and in the state which are so beautiful but they are neglected, Justice Chauhan said.

Stating that only eight monuments from Telangana state have been recognised as protected monuments of national importance as against 3,600 from the states, the bench observed that Hyderabad had astonishing monuments and structures such as the Paigah tombs but they had not been recognised as protected monuments of national importance. There were only two such monuments in the city the bench said.

The bench asked that when the Ramappa temple was being considered for the Unesco World Heritage List, why did the government not select monuments for inclusion in the national list.

The bench was dealing with a taken-up public interest litigation on laying pipelines in the moat of the Golconda Fort by the GHMC without getting approval from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).  This work is said to be damaging the heritage monument.

Assistant Solicitor General N. Rajeshwara Rao said that GHMC officials had not responded to the showcause notice served by the ASI.

The bench directed the GHMC to stop the work and issued notices to the principal secretary of municipal administration, GHMC and HMDA commissioners and the Union archaeology department.