Champaner site nominated for Unesco's list

vadodara: gujarat might soon have one its heritage sites champaner-pavagadh become a part of unesco''s elite list of world heritage sites if the proposal sent by the central government department of culture is accepted. after extensive documentation of 120 structures at the site, the archaeological survey of india and the heritage trust, a voluntary organisation working on conservation of heritage structures, submitted a proposal that was sent as india''s second nomination to the unesco office in paris a few days ago.the champaner-pavagadh site has already catapulted to the world map after it was nominated to the world monument watch-list of 100 most endangered heritage sites of the world for the year 2000. to draw world attention to the magnificent site and create awareness about its invaluable monuments, the heritage trust has decided to organise the 3rd champaner festival on saturday at 6 pm. eminent dancer and choreographer chandralekha''s dancers will present a special show ''sharira shakti ascending'' with accompaniment of eminent dhrupad singers and musicians the gundecha bandhu. the show will be against the backdrop of two heritage sites. the first will be at the jama masjid hauz compound and the second at east bhadra darwaja. the audience will move with the dance troupe. the ''sharira shakti ascending'' is a dance about the profound and invisible female energies which can activate our inner and outer selves. it is in tune with the theme of the manifest femininity of champaner, informed chandralekha who is in city to attend the festival. umakant and ramakant gundecha will accompany as dhrupad singers, and akhilesh gundecha will perform on the phawaj. guided by chandralekha''s choreography, her students shaji john and tishani doshi will give a performance. one of the highlights of the programme is a short animation film that shows what the heritage site must have looked in its heydays. any of its important structures including the magnificent city of champaner lies buried within the existing ruins and a proposal to highlight these is in the offing. an exhibition and detail documentation report of the site will also be put on display at the site. heritage trust president karan grover says the project includes redesigning the landscape of champaner-pavagadh with an aim to make it tourist friendly. "the project is estimated to cost three-and-half crores and would involve resurrecting an old narrow gauge railway track in the area. "we want to revive the railway track and have a toy train that would take tourists on a tour across the heritage site past the buried ruins that can be excavated. we have also proposed to remove the existing state highway that passes across the heritage site and re-locate it outside so that the site can be free from encroachments that have increasingly destroyed the heritage structures in the area in the past," he said. according to him, amongst the eminent guests are ambassador of france bernard de montferrand, minister of state for tourism prabhat singh chauhan and minister of state for education, women and child welfare anandi patel and department of culture and tourism secretary gopalaswamy. the festival is also being sponsored by harmony furnishing fabrics, reliance industries (textile division) which has shown interest in further a collaboration with the champaner site. "they had co-sponsored the elephanta festival, and tina ambani has shown keen interest to work with us on this site too. we plan to have a number of shows in future with harmony," informed grover.