For individuals who cannot afford to maintain their heritage buildings, the KMC will create a fund to take up urgent repairs.
Mayor Firhad Hakim on Wednesday said all major corporates that own heritage buildings in Kolkata will have to ensure they are properly maintained. He also urged private owners of heritage buildings to ensure proper upkeep by exploring means to monetize the properties by putting them into adaptive reuse.
“We will tell the corporates to take an initiative for upkeep of prominent heritage buildings they own. We will also create a corpus for owners of heritage buildings who can’t repair them due to financial distress. The city’s heritage buildings need to be maintained at all costs,” said Hakim.
Hakim also mooted the idea of exploring tourism opportunities in the East Kolkata Wetlands through setting up of homestays and boating facilities in the bheris. Some bheris already offer paddle-boat rides in winter.
The KMC also plans to rent out a location next to the Dhapa dumping ground that has been beautified by the civic body’s solid waste management department for film shooting. The mayor said he had already written to the state environment minister seeking his help in this regard.
But the KMC wishes to first address heritage buildings, several of them in north and central Kolkata that are used as commercial properties but are in extremely poor state. Hakim held a meeting with state tourism minister Indranil Sen on Wednesday and made a plan to improve transport and other infrastructure to attract tourists to the city’s landmark buildings that include some of the major heritage structures.
“We will arrange for transportation from one landmark building to another across the city for the tourists,” Hakim added.
