KARACHI: Heritage re-survey work moving at a snail’s pace
By Bhagwandas
KARACHI, Oct 4: Hardly 40 per cent of the work on the Karachi Heritage Resurvey Project has been completed though it has already spent more time than was prescribed for the whole work, it is reliably learnt.
Sources said a major reason for the slow pace of work was delayed payments by the government. Another reason was that since such an extensive study in the field had not been done before, the information gathering, recording, etc was taking longer than projected.
The sources said that the project that was to be completed in six months had already taken over 18 months and might take six months to a year more before its final report was prepared.
The Rs1.8 million project is being conducted by professionals associated with the NED university and is being sponsored by the Sindh Culture Department.
Responding to Dawn’s queries, NED team coordinator Anila Naeem said more than 300 of the over 700 buildings, which have been protected under the Sindh Cultural Heritage Protection Act, have been resurveyed by the team comprising three architects.
She said the old city areas were distributed in 27 quarters and survey work in 10 quarters – Old Town, Sadar Bazaar, Serai, Rambagh, Railway, Bunder, Market, Ranchore Lines, Preedy, and Artillery Maidan – had been completed, it was in progress in the Civil Lines Quarters and Frere Town and the Cantonment area, after which work on the remaining 15 quarters — Napier, Bhisti Wara, Soldier Bazar, Quarries, Garden, Jail, Layaree, Manora, Baba Bhit Shamspir, Kiamari, Ghizree, Old Clifton, Machi Mianee, Ramswami, Gari Khata – would be taken up.
She said work on the project, guided by NED’s Dr Nauman Ahmad and senior architect Arif Hassan, began in January/ February 2006 and the first instalment of funds was provided by the government in December 2006 while the second instalment was made available a few days back, but in the meantime the NED university had been providing funds so that the work continued.
She said the work done by a non-governmental organisation, the Heritage Foundation, had been taken as a baseline and now a detailed survey was being conducted to update it to see what was the present status of these protected buildings.
She said detailed criteria —such as historical value, architectural value, relation to some important personality, historical event, etc — was also being developed, which would highlight the importance of the particular building.
She said generally people were very helpful to the survey team, providing information and other assistance, but once the team was looted at gunpoint while surveying a protected building off I. I. Chundrigar Road on a Sunday morning. It lost an expensive digital camera, cellphones and cash of its team members. It, however, looked like a common case of street crime that had plagued the city in the recent years.
Ms Naeem said that the data on the protected buildings collected through the survey and the old maps acquired from the Karachi Building Control Authority and other government and non-governmental sources, satellite imageries etc was being digitalised and detailed maps, documents having various valuable information would be prepared under the project.
Answering questions, senior architect Arif Hassan, a member of the Advisory Committee on Cultural Heritage, said the project had been delayed for two reasons: one being the delayed payments and the other extensive information gathering. But once it was completed, hopefully in a few months, its report would be helpful in preparing future actions and policies regarding heritage conservation.
The resurvey project was prepared by the Sindh Culture Department on the directives of the advisory committee to get an update regarding the status of the over 700 buildings that had been declared protected under the Sindh Cultural Heritage Act in the mid-1990s based on the information provided by the Heritage Foundation, which it had gathered earlier.
