Hill Fort Palace unsafe, hazardous to repair: Expert committee

Hyderabad: An expert committee, evaluating the structural stability of Hill Fort Palace, popularly known as the Ritz building, informed the Telangana High Court that the building was unsafe and that reviving the structure with repairs would prove hazardous.

The committee, constituted by the National Academy of Constructions with IIT-H and NIT Warangal professors as members, besides a heritage restoration expert and an architect, submitted a report in this regard on Thursday.

Previously, the Telangana High Court’s division bench of Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan and Justice N. Tukaramji, dealing with a PIL, had asked the government about steps taken to revive the structure, to which the government replied that restoration work was yet to start, but ₹ 50 crore was sanctioned by the finance department for the same.

As the High Court expressed anger over the delay, the Telangana government’s tourism department asked the NAC to evaluate the building.

The expert committee, based on laboratory tests, concluded that it was not viable to continue with repairs due to leaks in the roof and deterioration of the basement, as it could not withstand an earthquake.

It recommended that the state government reconstruct the building after demolishing the current structure.

Going through the report, Chief Justice Ujjal Bhuyan questioned the government’s stand on reconstruction, saying that since it was a heritage structure symbolic of Hyderabad’s history, it must be restored, irrespective of the cost.

The High Court, however, left it for the state government to decide whether it wanted to go for reconstruction or continue the building for some other purpose. The decision is to be conveyed to the court by June 27.