UNESCO Awards Mumbai University for Cultural Heritage Conservation

UNESCO awards the University of Mumbai (MU) the prestigious Asia Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation. MU received the award for restoring the heritage Rajabai clock tower and library building located in the campus premises of the university.

The governor of Maharashtra, Ch Vidyasagar Rao, who is also the Governor of Mumbai Univerity received the award on August 21, 2019. The award, however, was announced last year, the director of UNESCO India, Mr Eric Falt was present in the event to confer the award to the Maharashtra Governor.

Brinda Somaya, the principal architect of the project informed that to keep the vintage heritage feel of the building intact, tiles from other old demolished buildings are used to reconstruct the entrance of the library building. She informed that 4 types of materials were used to construct the building and no restoration project has been conducted before. With the financial support of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Indian Heritage Society conducted the restoration work of the building.

The restoration of the building was carried out in 2 phases, the first phase of renovation started in 2013 and was completed in 2015. In this stage, the roof polish was removed to bring out the roof made of Burma teak wood and in this stage, the leakage in the ceiling was fixed. Ms Somaya informed that the broken statues and carvings were fixed and some areas had to be painted including stones. The work of the second stage in ongoing and is expected to end within the next 6 months and they will be restoring the furniture, building architecture in some places and fix the ceiling lights.

The state minister of higher education, Mr Vinod Tawde, Vice-Chancellor of MU, Mr Suhas Pednekar, COO of TCS N. G. Subramaniam, Chairperson of Indian Heritage Society (IHS) Anita Garware were present in the event along with the principal architect Brinda Somaya.

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The Director of UNESCO India, Mr Eric Falt informed that this award is given after a highly competitive regional contest. This award is for contribution in the field of conservation and is focused on recognising the efforts of private individuals or organisations throughout the Asia Pacific.

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38 UNESCO World Heritage sites are located in India and 19 alone are located in Mumbai. Governor Rao stated that with its numerous heritage buildings, churches, libraries, synagogues and historic temples, South Mumbai has the potential to become the heritage district of India.

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