Hyderabad: Lack of maintenance of heritage buildings by successive governments is the reason that such structures are heading towards ruin.
In 2013, private conservation architect G.S.V. Suryanarayana Murthy was consulted on developing a renovation plan for heritage structures, including Osmania General Hospital.
The detailed plan for OGH was submitted to the AP Medical Services Infrastructure Development Corporation, with an estimated cost of Rs 19 crore.
No action was taken on it and now the government has decided to demolish the OGH building.
Conservation plans were also developed for the State Central Library, Moazzam Jahi Market, Pathargatti, Char Kaman, Gulzar Houz and City College. Only the State Central Library plan was implemented at the cost of Rs 2 crore.
Mr Murthy said, “It takes a lot of money to conduct major restoration and repairs on a heritage structure, but if the works are conducted once in 10 to 15 years, there would be no worry.”
Daily conservation measures are required which would annually cost a few lakhs of rupees depending on the size of the structure, he said.
When asked if heritage structures come with a timeline and reach a point after which they cannot be salvaged, Mr Murthy said, “Other than the organic portions, mainly wooden structures, the inorganic portions which usually comprises 80 per cent of a heritage structure, can be conserved with appropriate measures.”
However, more than half of the notified 165 heritage structures are privately-owned and there are no incentives for the owners to renovate them.
The cost of maintaining government-occupied heritage structures is shared by the different departments which are housed there.
Whichever department occupies a heritage structure will have to pay for its restoration work.
An example is the Directorate of Industries building at Chirag Ali Lane which is older than the OGH structure and was recently renovated by the industries department. It is also South India’s first IGBC certified green building heritage structure.
