LAHORE, April 8: The Pakistan office of Unesco has reportedly recommended its headquarters to remove the Lahore Fort from the list of endangered monuments. “The recommendation is a big achievement because of the restoration work conducted at the historic fort during the past one and-a-half years and the future related multi-million rupees programme,” officials claimed here on Saturday.

Unesco had declared the Lahore Fort and the Mughal Shalamar Gardens endangered monuments in the wake of holding of parties in the former and demolition of the hydraulic system of the latter reportedly during the Shahbaz Sharif government.

Officials said India’s Taj Mahal, too, was put on the list of the endangered monuments but was removed from it after restoration efforts of 18 years. In contrast, the Lahore Fort would be removed from the list because of the remedial measures of only 18 months.

They said the fort would be finally removed from the list after a meeting at the Unesco headquarters in near future.

The recommendation came as the provincial government, which was given control of the fort some time ago, took steps to improve environment there and restored the decrepit Shish Mahal. It restored Shish Mahal’s roof which had sagged because of weight of years of refurbishment for which tons of iron bars and cement were used.

The government removed the burden from the roof and the termite-infested wooden beams, besides restoring the glass work of the place. The work has been completed with Norwegian grant of $9 million and under guidance of its experts from Hong Kong, Britain and France.

In addition, ugly power mainlines in the fort and in front of its Alamgiri Gate were removed. Restoration of the lawns in the fort and the Hazoori Bagh, too, were part of the restoration.