UNESCO to inspect Charminar, Golconda Fort for heritage tag

Charminar and Golconda Fort, pillars of the Qutb Shahi heritage that adorn the now modern city of Hyderabad, will be inspected by a UNESCO panel next month for their possible inclusion in the coveted World Heritage List.

Experts from the UNESCO's International Council of Monuments and Sites will visit Charminar, Golconda Fort and Qutb Shahi tombs in September before they prepare the World Heritage Sites list of 2013. The visit by the panel is mandatory before the UNESCO takes a call on whether these sites are eligible to be inscribed on the World Heritage Sites list. Around the same time, another UNESCO panel, International Union for Conservation of Nature, will also travel to Himachal Pradesh to inspect the Great Himalayan National Park. Both the sites have been forwarded by the government to the UNESCO for declaring them as World Heritage sites in 2013. Currently, India has 27 World Heritage sites. With regard to the structures in Hyderabad, the Andhra Pradesh government is refurbishing the monuments and getting them ready for the inspection. India usually refers many sites from across the country to the UNESCO for declaring them as World Heritage sites, but sometimes withdraws the proposals for want of more documents and other things. Last year, it withdrew its proposal to nominate Shantiniketan, the abode of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, as world heritage site.