The demand for revoking the decision of the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) council to demolish Devaraja Market and Lansdowne Building to pave way for new construction, is gaining fresh traction.
While heritage experts have slammed the MCC’s decision on the grounds that a slice of history was being effaced from the main commercial hub of the city, the Mysore Grahakara Parishat (MGP) has ferreted out an earlier report submitted by a civil engineering expert from IIT (Madras) which stated that the structures could be conserved. The report was submitted by Arun Menon, convener, National Advisory Board, National Centre for Safety of Heritage Structures, IIT Madras.
He was invited to the city soon after the partial collapse of the structure by the MGP in October 2016 and made his presentation based on a site visit, according to Bhamy Shenoy of the MGP.
The report had underlined that most of the Devaraja Market complex was in a fairly good state and this was more so with reference to the vaulted portions of the structures.
However, there were certain portions of the structure that are in a precarious condition and this was with specific reference to few locations with Madras terrace roofs and reinforced concrete (RC) additions, such as posts and roof slab, as per the report. The dilapidated state of a few portions of Devaraja Market was attributed to poor maintenance and the report said that preventive maintenance was the corner stone of structural health of heritage structures and historical monuments.
The expert’s submission was that with a scientific approach to assessment and structural conservation, the existing infrastructure of the Devaraja Market and Lansdowne building could definitely be rehabilitated, and restored. On the possible way forward the suggestion was to develop a strategy for the safety evaluation of the remaining portions of the Devaraja Market and the Lansdowne Building on the basis of standard international conservation and rehabilitation practice.
The technical recommendations included establishing strength of the masonry and assess the role of previous interventions and mapping existing distress. It also called for reviewing the existing conservation practices, development and implementation of structural audit protocols to guarantee the structural health of heritage structures.
Chandraprakash, former professor of the University of Mysore who has worked on the Mysuru masterplan, said that across the world there was a movement to conserve heritage structures but the local councillors were out to destroy the soul of the city’s business area constructed by the Wadiyars.
