Delhi tourism minister Kapil Mishra on Thursday wrote a letter to Union tourism and culture minister Mahesh Sharma over heritage tag for the national capital, a year after the Centre pulled it out of
Delhi tourism minister Kapil Mishra on Thursday wrote a letter to Union tourism and culture minister Mahesh Sharma over heritage tag for the national capital, a year after the Centre pulled it out of the race for the coveted tag.
The decision to pull out Delhi barely a few months before its fate was to be decided at the 39th Session of the World Heritage Committee in Bonn last year, had left heritage experts and lovers disheartened.
Mr Mishra said that the Delhi government had proposed “Delhi’s Imperial Capital Cities” for nomination to Unesco’s list of World Heritage cities, the nomination for which was either withdrawn or deferred by the Union government, and requested the Centre that Delhi’s nomination should be sent for the next cycle.
“The nomination was to be discussed at the 39th session of the World Heritage Committee that was held in Bonn, Germany in June 2015. However, just before the meeting in Bonn, the nomination of ‘Delhi’s Imperial Capital Cities’ was either withdrawn by the Government of India or deferred. There has been no formal communication to the Government of NCT of Delhi in this regard. Chief secretary, Government of NCT of Delhi, had earlier sent a DO to secretary, ministry of culture, Government of India. Unfortunately, no reply has so far been received,” he said.
“With its rich and cosmopolitan cultural heritage, Delhi is like ‘Mini-India.’ It is essential that this rich cultural heritage of Delhi is projected before the world in right earnest. Any endeavour in this regard should not be looked at with political considerations,” Mr Mishra’s letter added.
Reminding the Union ministry that the Delhi government has spent considerable amount of time and resources for the nomination process for Delhi and had proceeded only after the consent of the ministry of urban development in February last year, Mr Mishra requested it to accept the dossier of “Delhi’s Imperial Capital Cities” to be sent for the next nomination cycle at 40th session of the World Heritage Committee scheduled to be held in Istanbul in July this year.
The Centre earlier last year had decided to “pull out” Delhi’s nomination as the World Heritage City, saying the prestigious tag, if granted, will put “lot of restrictions” on carrying out infrastructure works in the national capital.
Mr Sharma, however, had said that the Centre was open to the idea of renominating the city.
