Sir,
So far, several views by different people and organisations have been expressed on demolishing or retaining the heritage structures like Devaraja Market and Lansdowne Building, which are located at prime locations in Central Business District of Mysuru city. There are pros and cons with either options.
However, safety of life of tenants or hundreds of people, including foreign tourists, who visit these places (mainly Devaraja Market) on daily basis is not thought by any, if any untoward thing happens to these old structures. If these buildings are retained as such in its original form and if they collapse at a later date by way of natural act, who will bear the responsibility, other than paying a few lakh rupees of public money as compensation to the deceased by either MCC or State Government, for the loss of life is not clear.
Safety of life should be given priority as it is not possible to bring the life of the dead back. Hence, I fully agree with the views of Mubasher Mirza (SOM dated Mar.9, 2019) to rebuild these structures pro-actively, retaining the same design and grandeur of the original structures with ample parking space and other public amenities at their basement, by providing alternative space for the tenants during the reconstruction period (in a shortest period possible), which looks like a good proposition to this issue.
– Dr. S. V. N. Vijayendra, Roopanagar, 10.3.2019
This post was published on March 17, 2019 6:01 pm