In an effort aimed at protection and conservation of heritage buildings in Puducherry, the territorial government has reconstituted the State-level Heritage Conservation and Advisory Committee (SLHAC) headed by the Secretary to Government (Town Planning).
The committee has Chief Engineer of PWD, Superintending Engineer of Local Administration Department, director of tourism, art and culture, conservation assistant, archaeological department, Dr. S. Kothandaraman, professor, department of civil engineering, Pondicherry Engineering College, Raphael Gastbois, French architect-cum-urban planner, and the chief town planner, town and country planning department as its members.
“The committee would have statutory powers to notify heritage buildings and precincts. The committee now needs to finalise the list of heritage buildings and the heritage precincts as proposed under the heritage regulation. Intach has prepared a detailed list of all heritage buildings and a copy has been submitted to the government.
“Now, the government has to expedite the process of listing heritage buildings in the Union Territory. A two-stage process could be taken up by listing government and institutional buildings in the first phase followed by private buildings,” said Ashok Panda, co-convenor of Intach.
Once the heritage buildings are notified, they cannot be demolished or modified without the approval of this Heritage Conservation Committee. This will enable Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach ) along with the Puducherry government to preserve many heritage buildings in Tamil and French part of the Boulevard, Mr. Panda said.
In 1995, a broad study carried out by Intach had declared 1,807 buildings in the boulevard as heritage structures. In 2005, this number fell to 1,173.
However, in 2008, a few more buildings were added to the list increasing the total to 1,184. In 2010, after changing the listing classification in line with the national practices as per the recommendations of the Ministry of Urban Development, the number was pruned to 980 buildings. These have been classified as heritage buildings in Grade-IA, Grade-II A, Grade-II B, and Grade-III in the order of importance.
