Three years on, Telangana government yet to form heritage conservation panels

HYDERABAD:  Three years after the formation of the Telangana Heritage Act and a year after the Errum Manzil High Court judgement, the State is yet to fully form the designated heritage committees - Telangana State Heritage Authority (TSHA) and Greater Hyderabad Heritage Committee (GHCC).

Information provided by the Heritage department in response to an RTI filed by activist SQ Masood shows that the government is yet to appoint two external heritage experts in both TSHA and GHCC. The appointment of these external members is mandatory under the Telangana Heritage Act and as of now, all the members are senior government officials, including the Chief Secretary (in the TSHA) and GHMC/HMDA commissioner (in the GHCC).

However, despite their non-appointment, the incomplete committees have sat down for one meeting each in 2018. The TSHA and GHCC, both not fully formed, have had just two meetings since 2017, which is when the Telangana State Heritage Act came into force.

The minutes of the first meeting of the TSHA held on February 23, 2018, as provided in the RTI response, shows that the then Chief Secretary SK Joshi had directed the culture secretary "to suggest panel of names to be co-opted as independent members". 

As a follow-up to the TSHA meeting, GHCC sat for its first meeting on December 4, 2018. The minutes of the meeting provided in the RTI response stated, "Chief Secretary informed that the two experts to be selected as per section 6 (1) (4) would be completed after elections."

During the meeting, he also directed officials to create the Telangana Heritage Fund, as per the act.