Aurangabad, Nov 19:
The heritage gates, which are the identity of the city, got a new lease of life after their conservation works were undertaken after Aurangabad Smart City Development Corporation Limited (ASCDCL) allocated a fund of Rs 3.20 crore from Smart City project on nine gates. ASCDCL expects the work to be completed by April 2021.
The gates which will be conserved and beautified are Barapulla Gate, Roshan Gate, Katkat Gate, Paithan Gate, Naubat Darwaza, Mehmood Darwaza, Jafar Gate, Kala Darwaza and Khizer Darwaza.
Aurangabad is famous across the globe as ''City of 52 Gates''. However, its custodian Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC), due to its low vision, never paid attention to protect them citing reasons of financial crunch. The then Aseem Kumar Gupta was the last officer to bring special funds from the government and maintained the gates, many years ago. Reviewing the financial condition, the AMC proposed to conserve the gates through Smart City funds, during last year.
After unlocking the situation, the AMC administrator Astik Kumar Pandey, who is also on ASCDCL board, threatened the contractor of cancelling work orders if they did not start the works immediately. As a result, the contractors began work two months ago. Of nine gates, the work of six gates is given to one contractor.
There are many terms and conditions in the conservation work. Of which, one is that the contractors have to utilise the building material used some 400 years ago. Hence they had to use the old building material mixture or other things which are close to it. It is mandatory upon the contractors.