Expert team from IIT Roorkee visits Devaraja Market and Lansdowne building in Mysuru for inspection

An expert team from IIT Roorkee visited the Devaraja Market and the Lansdowne Building in Mysuru on Monday as part of a preliminary study of the two heritage structures.

The visit by a four-member team led by Umesh Kumar Sharma followed the Supreme Court’s recent direction to IIT Roorkee to evaluate if Devaraja Market and Lansdowne Building can be preserved as heritage structures.

The Supreme Court had directed the Director of IIT Roorkee to constitute an expert committee to evaluate if the two buildings can be preserved as heritage structures while hearing a plea filed by G. Satyanarayana alias Gouri Satya and others against the Karnataka government’s move to the demolish and reconstruct the Devaraja Market and the Lansdowne Building.

Taking note of a report by Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) that the “structures can be preserved and some repair/retrofitting is required to be undertaken”, the Supreme Court said the exercise by IIT Roorkee should be undertaken at the earliest and a report should be filed in a sealed cover within a period of eight weeks from the date of the directive on September 2.

Meanwhile, president of Devaraja Market Shopkeepers’ Association Mahadev said officials from the Mysuru City Corporation, too, accompanied the expert team from IIT Roorkee during its visit to the heritage structure on Monday.