The Hindu : New Delhi News : Heritage status for Connaught Place likely

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 14, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Heritage status for Connaught Place likely

NEW DELHI, MARCH 13. Connaught Place, the showpiece of Lutyen's Delhi, is in for a facelift, ahead of the Metro Rail's arrival in September.

The first step in cleaning the Capital's cultural and commercial hub of its ugly acquirements and decongesting it is to declare it a heritage site.

Work in this direction is on and the Urban Development Ministry's Heritage Conservation Committee, constituted recently, has already met thrice. It would soon finalise a list of buildings, which include Connaught Place, to be brought under the heritage category, sources in the Union Urban Development Ministry told said.

The ministry is also finalising guidelines and rules and regulations with regard to the use and maintenance of these buildings to be followed by all agencies like the MCD and NDMC, they said. Connaught Place is an extremely important landmark of the Capital not only from commercial but also cultural and urban design point of view and we have to sensitise the people to its value and history, says additional secretary in the Ministry B.S. Lali, who is chairman of the Heritage Conservation Committee of Delhi.

He said that after the Connaught Place is declared as a heritage site, an awareness campaign will have to be launched to make people value the place in extend a helping hand in the conservation of the heritage.

"Notification of the Connaught Place as a heritage site would facilitate us in removing ugly looking structures that have been added to the sprawling shopping complex most of which is privately owned," says New Delhi Municipal Council chairperson Sindhushree Khullar.

The place will acquire a new meaning in urban design and form front, which and hoardings.

At present the NDMC is powerless to compel the private owners to use their buildings in a manner it wants, but after confirmation of the heritage status, it will be equipped to take care of the aesthetic aspect in the redevelopment of the area, she said.

Mr Khullar said that a presentation to the Urban Development Ministry on redevelopment of Connaught Place had already been made.

The redevelopment will involve reorganisation of traffic flows, reassessment of parking requirements, redesigning roads, streets, lights, drainage and sewerage, relandscaping the Central Plaza and restoration of the heritage facade of the place and modernisation of existing structures, said Ms Khullar.

In reply to a question, Ms Khullar said that in restoration of heritage facade of Connaught Place and its modernisation, global expression of interests will have to be invited as the task was that of large scale urban renewal.

However, the task of studying relocation of traffic has already been given to the RITES and it will give its first report next month, she said.

The Connaught Place was constructed in 1933 on a land of the Madhoganj village acquired by the government and sold to private parties at the rate of Rs. 2 per sq yard.

It was named after the Duke of Connaught to honour him on his visit to Delhi.

The NDMC renamed Connaught Circus as Indira Chowk and the Connaught Place as Rajiv Chowk on January 12, 1996 in its first meeting. -- UNI

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