Fresh heritage precinct proposal for KMC
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Kolkata: Calcutta Architectural Legacies (CAL) and Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) that have been nudging the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to accord heritage precinct status to historic neighbourhoods in Kolkata with significant built architecture have again submitted the proposal on Dalhousie Square and Bow Barracks.
In addition, work on a dossier is underway to demarcate two other localities — Lake Temple Road and College Street — as precincts as well.
The proposal on Dalhousie Square, now known as BBD Bag, had earlier been submitted to KMC in Sept 2024. CAL and INTACH resubmitted the proposal last week following a request by KMC commissioner Dhaval Jain.
The dossier was prepared by architects Partha Ranjan Das and Kamalika Bose to give shape to a demand that CAL founder and writer Amit Chaudhuri has been raising to declare heritage precincts so that the city's unique built heritage can be preserved.
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"We need to declare zones as heritage precincts to retain the character of these localities instead of focusing just on individual buildings," said Chaudhuri. INTACH that has been promoting heritage conservation in the city for decades has lent its weight to the proposal. INTACH and CAL had moved Calcutta High Court in 2019 with a PIL on the unilateral delisting of heritage buildings and later argued for the declaration of heritage precincts.
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The HC had in Jan 2025 issued an order asking the state to approve the draft KMC rules for heritage buildings within 8 weeks. But there has been no headway on the issue yet. "Since the HC deadline has lapsed, KMC needs to urgently take it up with the state government and act on the matter," said GM Kapur of INTACH.
Several other Indian cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Pondicherry, have heritage precincts that ensure that any new development does not alter the character of the zone.
Speaking to TOI, conservation architect Das said the proposal maps the heritage precinct of Dalhousie Square and Bow Barracks and spells out building rules that will govern addition and alteration to existing buildings and addition of a fresh building in the precinct.
"The proposal is not anti-development but regulated development so that the inherent character of the neighbourhood or precinct is retained," explained Das. CAL, which was set up around a decade ago by a group of like-minded citizens united in the common goal of working to prevent the disappearance of our city's distinctive residential neighbourhoods and other marks of modernity unique to Kolkata, has been advocating the need to declare zones as heritage precincts to retain the character of these localities instead of focusing just on individual buildings.
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