Hotel loses heritage tag

Hyderabad

June 3: The state government on Wednesday denotified Montgomery Hotel at Parklane, Secunderabad, from the list of heritage structures. The government went ahead with the denotification despite the Heritage Conservation Committee of the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority twice rejecting the plea made by the property owners to delete the building from the list.

Inquiries revealed that the Congress MLC, Mr K. Premsagar Rao, who also owns Chiran Fort, bought the property and managed to erase the heritage tag on the building which is blocking his way to raise a commercial complex. The principal secretary of the municipal administration and urban development, Mr C.V.S.K. Sarma, issued the orders after Dr Reddy gave his nod.

The Chief Minister’s approval is must for the inclusion or deletion of structures from the heritage list. The property owners, while making the request to the government, sought to project that the building is in a dilapidated condition and may collapse anytime. They even attached the report of a civil engineer in Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University who warned of loss of life as the structure may collapse anytime.

The property owners dashed off another letter to the government presenting a terrifying picture that due to heavy rainfall a portion of the building had collapsed earlier and one person died. Irony is that a bar and a restaurant still runs in the building and the municipal authorities did not verify the genuineness of the owners’ claims.
The erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad and the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority put a plaque on the hotel premises during the celebrations of 200 years of Secunderabad.

The two authorities glorified the structure as one of the oldest heritage monuments in the city. Apparently keeping in view the importance in terms of heritage, the committee resolved not to agree for deletion of the building from the list. There was no change in the stand when the issue was placed before the committee for the second time. The committee said re-development could take place in the open areas but the existing structure should be kept intact.