Will Include Residential Bldgs, Industrial Structures Beyond South Mumbai
Anjali Joseph | TNN
Mumbai: By the time the first Mumbai list of protected heritage buildings came out in 1995, it was too late for the old admiralty building on V B Gandhi Marg, Kala Ghoda. “It was a beautiful building that served as the admiralty in the 18th century and it had a grand old wooden staircase, but it was demolished,” recalls writer Sharada Dwivedi. Since 1995, the heritage list commissioned by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has managed to protect many if not all of the buildings listed. But the original list, compiled in a tight time-frame, concentrated on south Mumbai and principally focused on Victorian neo-Gothic architecture, like CST or the high court building. That bias will soon be corrected with the release of an updated heritage list, which has been under preparation for over a year now. Five agencies, commissioned by MMRDA to carry out the work of surveying the existing list and the rest of the city, are due to present their recommendations by early June. These will be reviewed by a sub-committee that will include heritage experts Cyrus Guzder, Shirish Patel, Rahul Mehrotra, Tasneem Mehta and Sharad Upasani (chairman of the heritage committee) before the new list is sent to the MMRDA board of governors, the civic heritage committee and finally the state government for notification. “The existing list is quite south Mumbai-centric, and there are several residential precincts and neighbourhoods which have a social or architectural character that could also be listed,” says architect Neera Adarkar, one of the architects commissioned to work on the revised list. “Some areas are hardly represented, like Kalbadevi, Mohammedali Road and the typology of industrial buildings in those areas.” The existing list also suffers from inaccuracies and inadequate documentation, says Abha Narain Lambah, whose firm has worked on reviewing the 1995 list. Reay Road station, for example, is classified as Grade I, which would mean it is of national importance, while the HC building is only Grade II. And, “some buildings are marked twice, with two different serial numbers, and others on the list seem to have been demolished,” says Lambah. Some structures, like the Khada Parsi statue on a column near Byculla station are Grade I listed but in poor condition, which is not recorded in the list. The 2006 list will be more detailed and include photographic and written documentation that makes the rationale of each listing more clear. The listing process could be complete by early July, says MMRDA’s N V Kulkarni. But Tasneem Mehta, a member of the sub-committee reviewing the suggested changes to the list, says that once the list has been finalised, time will be of essence. “If the government delays notifying the list, we worry that structures could be lost. Already, in heritage precincts like Gamdevi, there has been so much construction work. The state urban development department needs to notify suggeste d precincts as fast as possible, otherwise it will be neglecting its duty,” says Mehta. Mumbai’s heritage listing process is virtually unique throughout the Asia-Pacific region, says Mehta. But the list is not supported by state incentives to encourage owners of heritage buildings to see the heritage tag as an asset rather than a liability. There are several options, including tax breaks or maintenance grants for the owners, or even, Mehta suggests, a tourist cess that could be used to turn Mumbai’s heritage structures into the tourist attractions they deserve to be.
LAST MAN STANDING: The Khada Parsi statue on a column near Byculla station is a Grade I listed structure but is in a poor condition
Publication: TOI; Section: Times City; Pg: 8; Date: 20/6/06