Warangal: Ramappa only temple nominated for world heritage site

Warangal: The historic Ramappa temple in Palmapet of Mulugu district has been proposed as India’s only nomination for 2019 for the world heritage site selection process to Unesco. The Kakatiya Heritage Trust (KHT) which prepared the dossier of the 11th-century temple thanked Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao for taking up the matter with the Government of India at his level.

Retired IAS officer and trustee of KHT, B.V. Papa Rao said that the Kakatiya Heritage Trust started the process of preparing the dossier for the world heritage site way back in 2012 before the Telangana state was formed. The Trust attended preparatory meetings by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as to how to prepare the dossier. The Trust first prepared an application for putting Ramappa temple in the tentative list of world heritage sites as a prerequisite. Since 2013, this Kakatiya monument is in the tentative list of Unesco. After the formation of Telangana state, the proposal got the support of the Department of Heritage and Ministry of Culture, Telangana. In 2015, the Trust along with the Department of Heritage Telangana prepared the dossier with the technical services of G.V.S. Suryanarayana Murthy.

“The dossier was submitted by the state government to the Centre in 2018 along with the dossier of Jaipur city. Both dossiers were technically qualified but the Centre preferred Jaipur as India’s nomination for 2018. However, with the efforts of the Chief Minister, the  Centre has sent Ramappa temple as India’s only nomination to Unesco for 2019,” he said.

Another trustee Prof. M. Panduranga Rao said that the monument’s universal values would ensure that Unesco accepts Ramappa temple as a world heritage site in a year or two.