Maintenance of heritage buildings: Follow Good Engineering Practices

Sir,

The article on Lansdowne building by Dr. Javeed Nayeem in Star of Mysore dated July 4 took me to my childhood memories. Though my childhood was in Bombay, every summer vacation our family used be in Mysore. I remember visiting ‘Phalamrutha’ almost daily or on alternate days with my maternal uncle to eat the delicious fruit salad with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream or drink badam milk.

We used to start thinking of this ice-cream once our tickets were booked for Mysore. Even during later days, after my parents shifted our house in 1981, visits to Mysore from my workspot in Hyderabad or Bangalore, was in schedule. And during that short stay at least one visit to ‘Phalamrutha’ was a must.

I also remember Srinivasa Power Press. The owner was my late father A.R.S Gopalachar’s friend. He used to visit the Press frequently to get done a rubber stamp or some printing activity for Krishnapuram temple, for which he was connected. The Press also sold religious and spiritual books. I remember visiting the Press along with my father.

The sad part of Lansdowne building and other buildings mentioned in the article is that we have not been able to restore them. Though lot of talks or discussions have taken place, nothing has been done.

At present there is so much of technology; so efforts should be made to completely repair or reconstruct the same by maintaining its heritage value in time bound manner. I find whenever the Administration decides to take up some of these works, there are a set of people to oppose the same and without any solution. But it is high time the District Administration should act on this.

While on the subject, I would like to stress the building maintenance for all our heritage structures as per yearly schedule, instead of playing blame-game after the damage is done. Even for new buildings, a planned preventive maintenance should be part of handing over. This is GEP (Good Engineering Practices) followed in all corporates.