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Jorhat, Feb. 8: The Centre has formally submitted a new dossier on Majuli to the Paris-headquartered Unesco to make a fresh cla-im for inclusion of Asia’s largest river island in the World Heritage Site List.
The 36th session of the World Heritage Committee convention (under Unesco) will be held at Saint Petersburg, Russia, from June 24 to July 6, during which Majuli’s claim for World Heritage Site tag will come up.
India is among the 21 countries which are members of the World Heritage committee that evaluates the proposals for World Heritage Site tags that flow in from across the world.
On January 24, the Archaeological Survey of India formally sent the 1,256-page dossier comprising six volumes, called River Island of Majuli, Cultural Landscape and Living Traditions in Midstream of Brahmaputra in Assam, to India’s permanent representative at Unesco headquarters in Paris, Vinay Sheel Oberoi.
He then submitted it to the global organisation.
Upper Assam commissioner S.I. Hussain, who is also the chief executive officer of the Majuli Cultural Landscape Management Authority, told The Telegraph here today that his office received a letter from the Archaeological Survey of India director-general, Gautam Sengupta, a few days back, stating that the “deferred” nomination (dossier) of Majuli island had been despatched to Paris.
The proposal, which has been sent for evaluation in the cultural landscape category, was approved by the Advisory Committee on World Heritage Matters of the Archaeological Survey of India.
Hussain said the letter stated that the Archaeological Survey of India has also requested the global organisation to send an International Council On Monuments and Sites evaluation team to the island for field verification.
The new dossier had been prepared by M/S Kshetra — a Hyderabad-based firm owned by conservation architect G. Suryanarayana Murthy — after several visits by Murthy and his team to the island last year.
The Archaeological Survey of India had deputed the firm to prepare a document after the last dossier was “deferred” by the 32nd World Heritage Committee convention held in Quebec in 2008.
Murthy told this correspondent today over phone from Hyderabad that the dossier in 2008 was deferred by the World Heritage Committee because it was not in tune with the changed guidelines of the panel.
He said reasons cited were lack of an inventory of all the xatras of Majuli, lack of appraisal of a Brahmaputra Basin study and proper management plan.
This will be a third attempt to clinch the World Heritage Site tag for Majuli.
Murthy said it was in 2004, at the 28th session World Heritage Committee convention held at Suzhou (China), that the first proposal to include Majuli in the coveted list was accepted.
At the 30th session of the convention held in Vilinius (Lithuania) in 2006, the proposal was “referred” back asking for additional queries.
The first demand for inclusion of Majuli in the World Heritage Site list came in 1998 from the Majuli Island Protection and Development Council, an NGO, which had former Rajya Sabha MP Arun Sarmah as its patron.
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