Lonar Crater to be tagged as world heritage site soon!

Rafique Aziz

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:

Here is good news for the heritage and nature-lovers as the world's third largest and National Geo-heritage Lonar Crater as the process for its inclusion in the tentative list of the UNESCO world heritage sites has gained momentum. Moreover, the crater has also completed 200 years for its identification.

A team of technical experts from Wildlife Institute of India (WII, Dehradun), Dr Bhumesh Singh Bhadouria and Dr Chitiz Joshi inspected the crater during last week (on January 20) to record its features, potential and prepare the inscription.

According to WII sources,“ Lonar Crater is designated as National Geo-heritage site by Geological Survey of India (GSI). It has also been declared as one of the RAMSAR sites of India in 2020. It is a unique site with geological and socio-cultural significance, apart from archaeological value. There are two stages of getting notified as a world heritage site with UNESCO. The first step is fulfilling its criteria and parameters for the inclusion in the tentative list. Hence our technical experts were on a preliminary visit to jot down the features (potential) and collect other necessary details required to prepare the inscription of the site. The team also visited the temples situated in the Lonar village. They interacted with the officials from the Directorate of Tourism (DoT) and the Department of Forest (DoF) to get an insight about the tourists traffic (including foreigners) at the site and the rich flora and fauna in the periphery.”

Scientific Review soon

The WII experts feel there is immense potential for its inclusion, but it would be too early to speak on it. Hence the WII will conduct a scientific review of the meteorite site and would pay frequent visits for more details for authenticity and drafting an inscription of the same. Few years ago, the crater shot in the news after the water in it turned pinkish.

Pride of Maharashtra-India

It is learnt that the crater was identified as a unique geographical site by a British officer, C. J. E. Alexander in 1823. The diameter of the crater is 2 kilometres and was formed due to meteorite impact in basalt rock some 50,000 years ago. The site is a pride of Maharashtra and India.

The crater falls in the jurisdiction of DoF. The temples situated at the base of the crater and other pilgrimage centres in the village are taken care of by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI, Buldhana) and the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) serves the tourists through its multi-storeyed resort. Moreover, the then Japan Bank for International Corporation (JBIC) had allocated huge funds for the preservation of Lonar crater under Phase II of the Ajanta-Ellora Conservation and Tourism Development Project (AEDP) in 2003 (20 years ago).

When contacted the deputy director (Directorate of Tourism) Vijay Jadhav confirmed the development but refused to comment on it.