Bhubaneswar, April 18: The culture and tourism department today conducted a heritage walk to spread awareness about the monuments in the city.

Bhubaneswar is known for its treasure trove of heritage sites. Today, on the occasion of World Heritage Day, school students and residents explored the sites in the Old Town area of the city that houses over 200 small and big ancient monuments.

The heritage walk is an annual event that started from Rajarani Temple, like every year, on the occasion.

Early in the morning, those who wished to walk down the heritage corridor gathered around the 10th century temple. Folk artistes, who performed Ghoda Nacha, Chhau, Sahi Jata and so on, were seen in colourful attires to march along with the heritage walkers.

Conch blowers and drummers, too, made for a mega carnival. Over 500 school students in T-shirts and caps, distributed by the organisers, held banners with tips on preserving monuments and also made an effort to spread awareness about the heritage sites. The walkers that included culture minister Ashok Panda and department secretary Aravind Padhee went up to about a thousand in number.

The heritage trail route went towards Ravi Talkies Square from the Rajarani Temple and covered various majestic monuments and temples built between the 7th and 11th century.

Though many more were left out in the sidelines of the bylanes of Old Town during the march, several significant ones were covered.

"I'm amazed to see the huge monuments. It speaks tonnes about the rich history of the state and the city. We must be given more information about them in our academics and school syllabus," said Priti, a school student.

JOURNEY DOWN HERITAGE LANE

Any one can do the heritage walk trail with help of pamphlets available at the tourism office in the city. Some tourists were also seen visiting the sites along the heritage corridor of the city. "These are simply unbelievable monuments, and the fact that the entire area is full of such monuments makes this cluster special. We wish the pamphlets had more details about the sites so that we, as tourists, get to know the place and its history better," said Vanessa, who is from Italy.

"There are over 4,000 ancient sites in Odisha, of which 78 are protected by the Archaeological Survey of India. State Archaeology takes care of 200 of them. We are working to preserve these sites. The heritage walk is very significant in spreading awareness among local residents and visitors about conservation of the monuments," said Panda.

Despite having the potential of making Old Town a heritage area maintained with its ancient touch, neither the monuments have guards nor are the rules of not constructing anything around protected shrines observed.

The volunteers also visited another historical site in the city, the Khandagiri and Udayagiri hill caves, on the occasion.

The Khandagiri Anchalika Bikash Parishad members, along with local people, took up a cleaning campaign in and around the site today morning.

The International Council for Monuments and Sites observed World Heritage Day in 1982 for the first time in Tunisia.

Unesco later recognised it as an annual day dedicated to the world heritage.