It was perhaps a perfect farewell to one of the city’s best known and oldest bookstores on Saturday evening when A.A. Hussain Bookstores and Company, which will give way to a new building, was presented with a citation by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) at an award ceremony.
The bookstore, along with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, received citations at the event. The latter was congratulated by Intach for restoring the Qutb Shahi Tombs in the Golconda Fort premises.
At the event, the Intach awards were presented to six heritage structures in Hyderabad. The nominations selected by the jury members were the Qamraqi Gumbad in Ziaguda, the Carriage Workshop in Lalaguda, the Ram Bagh temple complex in Attapur, the Chawni Muhammadi precinct in Golconda, the Garrison Wesley Church and the State Bank of Hyderabad’s main branch in Gunfoundry.
Addressing attendees at the event, heritage activist Sajjad Shahid pointed out that none of the six nominations were part of the notified heritage list. “As of now, there are 30 recommendations made by the last Heritage Committee, which are still pending. We need to increase the number of notified structures,” he mentioned.
Mr. Shahid also censured the Telangana government for making plans to reportedly rebuild Ravindra Bharathi, and said that after the formation of Telangana, “the hope that heritage buildings would be saved was gone”.
The awards for the nominations were presented to the respective heads of the structures, showcasing the upkeep and the history behind them. Prof. U.B. Desai, director, Indian Institute of Technology – Hyderabad (IIT-H), who was the chief guest at the event, talked about the importance of digitising structures.