An initiative will be taken to broaden the involvement of citizens of Mysuru in the conservation of heritage and monuments. This was decided at a meeting on heritage buildings conducted by the Mysuru Grahakara Parishat (MGP) here on Sunday.
Bhamy V. Shenoy, founding president of the MGP said that heritage committee will be constituted with the public as its members and they will also tap the student community from the various schools of architecture in the city.
He said experts will also be roped in from outside to enhance the expertise of the committee which will also bring pressure on the government to take measures to conserve the built heritage of Mysuru.
Earlier, N.S. Rangaraju of INTACH Mysuru and Dr. Syed Shakeeb Ur Rahman, former Dean of VTU, highlighted the conservation initiatives in Mysuru in the recent past. But the meeting surmised that neither the district administration nor the Mysuru City Corporation was keen on conservation of built heritage and hence the onus must shift on citizens to bring pressure on them.
Mr. Rangaraju said that as per the latest assessment there were nearly 600 heritage buildings in Mysuru though only 131 have been notified as such. But in the absence of regulations they were under threat. The issue of conservation of Devaraja Market and Lansdowne Building also came up for discussion and Mr. Rangaraju said that there was no concerted effort to safeguard the built heritage.
