Pune polls 2012: Parties play heritage card

 

Heritage conservation seems to have caught the fancy of political parties. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has included it in its manifesto. However, the politicians do not fare well taking into account what has been done for heritage conservation in the city over the last five years. 

In 2011-12, Rs1.5 crore was allotted for heritage works by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). Of this amount, Rs1 crore was spent on repairs and restoration of some historic monuments, according to head of heritage cell of the PMC, Shyam Dhavale. 

The first phase of restoration of Vishrambaugwada was completed and the work is now in its second phase. Work at Nanawada is underway, while work on Kasba Ganpati temple was completed. The project of restoring the 700-year-old Nageshwar temple was started by the PMC. 

Drafting a new list of heritage sites was another important task completed by the civic body this year. In the draft development plan of the city, the PMC has proposed to earmark 2% of development charges it gets for building permission for conservation of heritage structures in the city. 

However, actually not many initiatives were taken except for the above mentioned projects. No political party was seen taking a stand on any heritage issue and insisting on provision for any heritage project in the last five years with the exception of Nageshwar temple and Kasba Ganpati temple, wherein people’s representatives took the initiative. 

However, all political parties are talking about using the city’s heritage to attract tourists. The NCP has dedicated a full page in its manifesto to the party’s aspirations for heritage conservation. Their concept of heritage conservation includes natural heritage, monuments, folk culture, propagation of ancient and old literature, drama and films. They have plans for including theme-based tours in the Pune Darshan project. They intend to set up a Marathi language conservation centre. 

The efforts taken by the party so far in this direction includes construction of memorial for Baji Palkar at Wadgaon and renovation of Savitribai Phule memorial at Bhavani Peth. The NCP claims to have contributed to ‘heritage conservation’ by constructing a multi-purpose hall in Kharadi, a multi-purpose building in Hingne Khurd and a cultural hall in Aundh. 

The Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party have been using the issue in their campaigns. 

Co-convenor of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach), Sharvey Dhongde said, “We need a full-fledged plan for the conservation of heritage in a city like Pune, which has a glorious past and great historic importance. Heritage is not just about monuments. Even with the projects that have been taken up for restoration we are going very slow. The Nanawada work is lingering. It’s for the first time in 12 years that the PMC’s heritage list has been revised. Fund paucity and political will are other hurdles.” 

Activists are hoping to see more involvement of political parties in actual action for heritage conservation. 

Archaeologist Sanjay Deshpande had pointed out that a few years ago, a suggestion was made to the PMC, asking for inclusion of archaeologists during any dig in old city areas. “This way we could have salvaged remains from the dig, but that suggestion was not taken seriously,” he said.