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.

Opinion

Editorial

What next?
Updated 21 Sep, 2023

What next?

One wonders that if administrative measures were all that were needed to arrest the rupee’s sorry slide, why were they not taken sooner?
Greater representation
21 Sep, 2023

Greater representation

PAKISTAN now stands at a significant juncture, with the names of 11.7m more women added to the voter list, ...
Lost generations
21 Sep, 2023

Lost generations

IF those who wield power in Pakistan think that the nation can progress when tens of millions of its children have...
Sikh activist’s murder
Updated 20 Sep, 2023

Sikh activist’s murder

Perhaps Indians have taken a page out of Mossad’s handbook in organising a hit on an individual they considered a ‘terrorist’.
ECP’s preparations
Updated 20 Sep, 2023

ECP’s preparations

The revision of the delimitation timeline still does not mean elections will be held according to the constitutional schedule.
Futures on hold
20 Sep, 2023

Futures on hold

IT is a sad turn of events when one is caught between choosing to fill their fuel tanks to get to work or paying the...