Cultural village planned at Golconda Fort

hyderabad: the 400-year-old heritage monuments of the two artistic women — taramati the musician and premamati the dancer of the qutb shahi courts — near the golconda fort will be developed as a cultural village, a venue for tourism oriented dance and music events and corporate hospitality. the first component of the project would be the restoration of the monument of taramati baradari by relaying old pathway and staircases.this would be followed by landscaping, setting up water bodies, sound and light systems, andhra pradesh tourism development corporation chairman and managing director c anjaneya reddy told the times of india on tuesday. the best monument representing the cultural interests of the 15th century nizam rulers and 17th century qutb shahis, particularly abdullah qutb shah is the taramati baradari monument. any development under the project, would adhere to the requirements of archaeology with the support of the state archaeology department, reddy said. another component of the project in the 8-acre land around the monuments close to the osmansagar road would be establishing a cultural village with outdoor and indoor auditoria, dormitories, rooms and facilities for practice of dance and music. also, an international cultural and research centre with literature on culture of all countries and a tourism restaurant or kitchen along with food courts and barbeque facility would be provided, he said. the estimated cost of the project would be around rs 3.5 crore. the entire project would be completed by december so that by feb. 1 next year it would be open for public. i was inspired by the writings of nataraja ramakrishna on cultural heritage which led to this project, anjaneya reddy said. against the average number 6 lakh tourists to the golconda fort every year, there would be a marked increase in the number of tourist arrivals as the developments would be within 2 km radius of the fort.