As a holiday crowd milled around the Golconda fort on Monday, officials oversaw finishing touches to the seating arrangements for the Independence Day flag hoisting ceremony in the forecourt of Rani Mahal inside the inner fortifications. “The Chief Minister will enter from the Makki Darwaza and exit by that route after unfurling the flag,” said an official.
The tradition of unfurling the tricolour inside the Golconda Fort was begun by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao after the formation of Telangana State in 2014. “The hoisting of tricolour from Golconda has a high symbolic value and can be used for brand building exercise for Telangana State. But unfortunately, some of the developments we expected did not happen. We have a problem with rampant encroachments and building activity near the fort and around it. That could have been stopped to help build a case for World Heritage City status,” says an Archaeological Survey of India official. The department has been sending frequent notices but nothing much has come out of it due to political interference.
A few days back, even the centuries old Ashoor Khana adjacent to the Jama Masjid near Golconda fort became disputed as a few people started constructing a wall. A few locals stepped in and the building activity was stopped.
The fort holds the key to Hyderabad’s nomination for World Heritage Site status for Qutb Shahi Tombs and Golconda which has to be: “an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change”.
While Golconda fort meets this criterion, the ongoing encroachments are changing the very topography of the area. “Recently, the police department installed traffic signals near the Banjari Darwaja, that shows how much the traffic has grown in the area. We have spotted new constructions on the higher areas outside the inner fortifications on the northern side. We cannot stop it as we are understaffed and don’t have policing powers. Only the State government should step in to change this worrisome situation,” said the ASI official.
