Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, May 3:

Director-general of Department of Archaeology (DoA), Kosh Prasad Acharya, today demanded the "redefinition" or cropping up the size of the Protected Monument Zones (PMZ) of the Kathmandu Valley. He was presenting the history of the Kathmandu Valley World Heritage Property (KVWHP) and its current state of conservation in the seven monument zones at a workshop today. "It is creating unnecessary burden on protection. The areas without any important traditional monument should be dropped from the PMZ," he said. He also showed interest in delegating power to the local authority for conserving the PMZs. "Conservation, building permit and monitoring can be done by the municipalities while the DoA can set the guidelines only," he added.

Koto Kanno, the UNESCO representative to Nepal sought support from the officials and technicians in finding solutions for the valley which is in the list of World Heritage in Danger.

"We have an obligation to preserve this valuable heritage and pass it on to our children in proper condition so that they can benefit from it," she said, adding, "We can no longer delay action on safeguarding the KVWHP which is in danger of losing its original universal value."

Fend Jing, the UNESCO specialist said that his organisation has been sending threat alerts to the Nepali government since 1992 about the deterioration but no improvement has been witnessed.

Lava Devkota, secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation said that we have to work collectively to protect the monument zones. Bidhyadhar Mallik, secretary at the Ministry of Education and Sports, said, "Our heritage sites are in tremendous pressure from increasing population, migration, economic activities and change in culture, values and lifestyle."