KARACHI, April 11: The Sindh Culture Department has decided to “re-survey” the buildings that were declared protected under the Sindh Cultural Heritage Protection Act many years back and are situated in the Cantonment areas, it is learnt.

According to the sources, under the act, the owner, occupier, etc, of the structure declared protected has to file objections within 30 days from the day it was declared protected. Afterwards, the structure is to be surveyed and its report is to be reviewed by the advisory committee that would take the final decision in the matter.

The sources said that when over 600 buildings were declared protected nearly half-a-decade back, over 100 objections had been filed within time and the department had asked the National Heritage Cell to survey all these buildings and file the report. The buildings were located all over the city, including the Cantonment areas.

The NHC carried out the survey and a report was submitted and discussed by the advisory committee. A few of these buildings were de-listed, while a majority of these were kept protected.

The source said that now over 25 buildings are to be re- surveyed and a majority, at least 15, are owned by various branches of the Defence Ministry, while over 10 are owned by private parties.

The sources said that the entire exercise of re-survey has been started after military authorities — which earlier never bothered to approach the culture department with their objections — have taken interest and initiated communication with the provincial chief executive as well as the head of the provincial bureaucracy.

The sources said that a law-enforcement agency had faced embarrassment many months back when it started to demolish a protected bungalows located at the intersection opposite a petrol pump at Lucky Star, Saddar, and the issue was highlighted in the press and also condemned by conservationists for many days. The conservationists even approached the Chief Executive and their letters urged him to intervene. However, the building was completely demolished by the army and the conservationists then demanded that either it be reconstructed as original or a park be laid on its site.

The sources said that now the Ministry of Defence had become cautious and was following this procedure. This time Iqbal Mehmood Dogar, Col for COS, Corps 5, has written a letter — 231/2/PC-48/Legal — to the governor and the chief secretary informing them that many buildings owned by the Ministry of Defence were illegally declared protected by the culture department.

The letter says that many of the buildings did not fulfil the criteria and neither the military was approached by the department before these were declared protected, nor any agreement had been arrived at between the defence ministry and the department. Many of these buildings are in ruins, the letter adds.

Sindh Governor, Mohammedmian Soomro’s principal secretary, Brig (Retd) Akhtar Zamin, after getting the letter from the Corps 5 Headquarters, wrote a letter — GS 16-53-2001 (SO II) — that eventually landed at the Department of Culture, with an order for the re-survey of the buildings in the Cantonment areas.

The provincial culture secretary, Ashiq Hussain Memon, responding to Dawn queries on Thursday, said that a sub-committee comprising Mr Memon (chairman), Controller Town Planning (KBCA) and NHC chief Farhatullah Qureshi, NHC member and Structure Controller (KBCA) Samat Ali Khan (members), and a section officer of the culture department, Badar Qureshi, as its member/secretary, has been formed to conduct the re-survey that is to start by mid-May.

He said that the sub-committee would submit its report to the department and then it would be discussed in the advisory committee headed by the provincial chief secretary who would take the decision as to which of these buildings were to be taken off the protected list and which are to remain protected.

The notification issued by the department says: “With the approval of the competent authority, the Department of Culture, Government of Sindh, is pleased to constitute a sub-committee under the chairmanship of the Secretary Culture, for conducting a re-survey of the protected heritage buildings lying in the Cantonment areas as such declared on 15/9/1997 for selection of appropriate buildings which genuinely deserved heritage.”