Delhi's Heritage Race has been delayed

Delhi's hope for getting a world heritage city tag by 2014 has been delayed by another year. The Archaeological Survey of India said the final nomination dossier for Delhi's world heritage tag cannot be submitted to UNESCO before January-February, 2014 as the tentative nomination dossier, which was put up on the UNESCO website in May this year, has to remain on the website for at least a year before the final dossier is submitted.

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Heritage city tag has been stretched till 2015

"When the final dossier is submitted by a state party, UNESCO takes about a year before making the final announcement around May-June. We were hoping that Delhi's final dossier would be submitted by January-February, 2013. But now Delhi's earliest chances of getting a world heritage city tag has been stretched till 2015," said a senior official from Intach Delhi Chapter, which is preparing the final dossier.

Though the one-year delay is disappointing, Intach convener A G K Menon said they were taking full advantage of the extra time. "Now that we have one more year to perfect our nomination dossier, we are working hard to improve our documents. In addition, the tourism ministry has granted a substantial sum to the Delhi government for tourism and a large part of the grant will go towards showcasing Delhi's potential as a rich, historical city," he said.

The grant given by the ministry is approximately Rs 250 crore. The final nomination dossier will also have to be cleared by the recently established world heritage advisory committee before it is submitted to UNESCO

The final nomination dossier is likely to be re-named "capital cities of Delhi", from the earlier "imperial cities of Delhi", and will feature Lutyens Bungalow Zone and Shahjahanabad. With Delhi out of next years' race to be one of the two sites nominated by the country for inscription under natural, cultural or mixed categories, it paves the way for cities like Ahmedabad or Mumbai who are also pitching for the tag.

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