People raise Rs 21 lakh to fix Pratapgad fort

Citizens volunteer to repair buruj of the structure’s wall, preventing collapse

The coronavirus pandemicinduced lockdown, which has now extended for nearly five months, has not only devastated the economy but also created havoc on historical monuments as well.

Due to absence of any vigilance by the state department of archaeology, the base structure of buruj (stone tower) of historic Pratapgad fort collapsed in middle of July. This has now become a major threat for the structural integrity of the fort’s wall.

However, authorities neither repaired nor paid any attention to this issue, leaving the structure abandoned and awaiting a major catastrophe. Now, a group of monument lovers from Pune have taken the task in their hands after spotting the damage. They started collecting money through a crowd funding initiative ‘Swarajya Nidhi’ to repair the damage.

The group is not only collecting funds but also took all permissions from the state archaeology department, forest department and descendants of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj for the restoration work. At least Rs 21lakh will be spent on the repair with the help of an agency appointed by the archaeology department which has the expertise in repairing Maratha-era structures.

The group members are mostly trekkers, college students, smallscale businessmen and IT employees. Pratapgad is a mountain fort built by Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj in 1659. The fort is at a distance of 24 km from the hill station of Mahabaleshwar and is one of the biggest tourist destinations in the region. The fort is also known for the murder of Adil Shah’s general Afzal Khan at the hands of Shivaji.

Talking to Mirror, Gaurav Shewale, one of the volunteers, said, “The base of the buruj collapsed due to heavy rain. Now the entire buruj and wall is threatened. Any more negligence would invite major damage to the entire stone wall spread several kilometres on the mountains.

Authorities have showed reluctance to repair the damage due to financial crunch. With no option, we decided to reinstate the structure ourselves. We are about to raise enough money to achieve the target,” he said.

Harishchandra Bagade, another volunteer and owner of a small eatery, said, “For one-and-half months, nobody paid any attention to this damage. The delay could have created permanent damage to the 400-year-old structure. We started the campaign and appealed to people to contribute for the task. We have ensured that no big amount will be accepted. We accepted money from the range of few hundreds to thousand rupees only.”

Shramik Gojamgunde, president of Sahyadri Pratishthan, said, “Seeing such efforts from the young generation, we helped them in getting all the permissions from state archaeology department, forest department and Member of Parliament Udayanraje Bhosale, who privately owns some part of the fort. They happily provided their consent. We have now created an estimate to rebuild the damaged part. The authorised agency, expert in reinstating such monuments, will complete the task in a few days without hurting its original structure.”

Tejas Garge, director of the state department of archaeology, said, “The group members asked us for permission to rebuild the damaged structure. After getting approval from the state government, we have allowed the group to proceed after following all the norms. We have asked them to take all the mandatory permissions.”