Norms for heritage buildings demanded

MYSORE: The voice for the preservation of the residence of renowned author R K Narayan just grew shriller.Former convener of Mysore Agenda Task Force (MATF) Maj Gen S G Vombatkere has urged the state government to immediately issue the Heritage Buildings and Precincts Regulations and take steps to preserve Mysore’s Heritage.“The government should stop deriving political mileage out of declarations of preserving heritage when there were no regulations pertaining to heritage buildings,” he said.He added that R K Narayan was a proud son of Mysore.Declaring Narayan’s house as a heritage structure by some official, he observed, does not make a building a heritage structure.“It would be a heritage structure only if government issued a notification to that effect.Government could issue such a notification only on the basis of Heritage Regulations,” he said.Though there were no regulations pertaining to heritage buildings, the government- constituted Heritage Expert Committee (HEC) sent a Draft Heritage Buildings and Precincts Listings (for Mysore) and Regulations (for Karnataka) to the Department of Kannada and Culture and Urban Development in 2006, he said.The HEC added 30 odd buildings and precincts to the listing originally prepared by Mysore Grahakara Parishat and submitted it to the Department of Heritage, Archaeology and Museums by the MATF Heritage Committee but R K Narayan’s house was neither included in the original listing nor in the additional list, he said.