Along with its natural heritage, Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani have a large number of heritage structures and precincts.

Listed heritage property, Mahabaleshwar Municipal Council. Credit: BEAG Archive

Bridge at Par village Credit: BEAG Archive

Pratapgad Fort. Credit: BEAG Archive

By 1996, Mahabaleshwar had become crowded, its bazaar taken over by loud music, gaming arcades, hawkers and shops that had brazenly extended their premises onto the road, leaving little space for pedestrians. Several multi-storey buildings had come up and more were under construction, although the prevailing law — the Development Plan of 1983 — allowed only ground plus one storey.

In 1997, BEAG filed a  writ petition (WP 2754/1997) in the Bombay High Court seeking demolition of the illegal constructions that had come up in violation of the Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani Regional Plan (1984-2001), which states that leases can be granted on condition that the green cover is protected and no additional construction occurs. BEAG’s petition also urged the Court that the forest area in and around Mahabaleshwar be protected from tree-felling and encroachment.

In a subsequent hearing in March 1998, the BEAG counsel drew the Court’s attention to the MRTP Act amendments that provide for heritage conservation and preservation.

In response, the High Court directed the Government of Maharashtra to constitute a Heritage Conservation Committee.

The Government of Maharashtra assured the Court that it would constitute a Heritage Conservation Committee in one month, but it was only after a legal notice was served that the Government of Maharashtra finally constituted the committee in July 1998.

Thus, the first Heritage Conservation Committee (HCC) for the Mahabaleshwar Panchgani Region was constituted on July 21,1998, under the chairmanship of Shri Ravindra Surve, a retired IAS officer.  

It was the first time in India that a HCC had been constituted for a statutorily designated region (consisting of the Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani municipal areas as well as rural areas outside these municipal limits), as opposed to a single municipal area.

Heritage Lists

In its final order in November 1998, the High Court had directed the Heritage Committee to formulate and finalize two important documents — the Heritage Lists for the towns of Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani and the region including both natural and man-made sites, and the Heritage Regulations for the region. These were to be prepared within four months in conformity with the Government of India’s Model Draft Heritage Regulation. The High Court directed the Government of Maharashtra to notify these documents within one month of receiving them.

Not wanting to leave the matter to the newly-constituted committee, BEAG commissioned heritage experts to prepare the Heritage Lists for the region as well as the towns of Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani. The lists prepared by the experts contained 253 sites — 131 in Mahabaleshwar, 87 in Panchgani, and 38 in the non-municipal areas.  The Heritage Committee approved the lists almost in their entirety. On July 23, 2001, the draft lists along with the regulations were officially notified.

However, BEAG discovered that 92 sites that had been in the list approved by the Heritage Committee were missing from the lists that had been notified. BEAG was told that the Director of Town Planning had deleted the sites from the notified list.

As some extremely important sites, including Mount Malcolm, one of the earliest buildings in Mahableshwar, were among those that had been deleted, BEAG took the matter up with the Government of Maharashtra in November 2001.

A month later, the government issued instructions to reinstate the 92 deleted sites in the notified Heritage Lists.

However, the Mahabaleshwar Municipal Corporation recommended the deletion of 35 sites, a third of which were privately-owned properties and many of which were fine historical structures. The municipal corporation also wanted all the points, walks and rides to be downgraded from Grade I to Grade III. Grade I sites are given maximum protection and are not allowed to be modified.

BEAG raised these issues with the Monitoring Committee, then under the chairmanship of Shri Kanga, and also challenged them in court in 2003.

In response to BEAG’s writ petition (WP 7308/2002 converted to PIL 39/2003), the Bombay High Court on March 24, 2004, put a stay on the deletions, restraining the Satara District Collector and the Municipal Councils of Mahabaleshwar and Panchgani from granting development permissions other than those compliant with the notified draft Heritage Regulations and the full notified Heritage Lists.

The Final Heritage Lists along with the regulations were published as follows: Panchgani Municipal Council on January 9, 2013  Mahabaleshwar Municipal Council on October 29, 2015  and MPESZ Region on November 6, 2015.  

Heritage Regulations

As directed by the High Court in its November 1998 order, the Heritage Conservation Committee formulated the Heritage Regulations for the region, which BEAG had helped amend in order to remove “several” lacunae such as responsibilities of the concerned authorities. The Draft Heritage Regulations were notified on July 23, 2001, the same day as the Heritage Lists.

The final Heritage Regulations, along with the Heritage Lists, were published as follows: Panchgani Municipal Council on January 9, 2013 , Mahabaleshwar Municipal Council on October 29, 2015, and MPESZ Region on November 6, 2015.

However, BEAG’s detailed scrutiny of the final Heritage Regulations for Mahabaleshwar, Panchgani, Municipal Councils, and MPESZ Region revealed several omissions compared with the heritage regulations of Satara and Wai — omissions that would reduce the new regulations to a mere paper tiger.

The HCC directed the Town Planning Department to forward the draft containing the corrections to the municipal councils, and directed the municipal councils to study and consider the document. Before any resolution is passed by the General Body of Mahabaleshwar & Panchgani a meeting with the Joint Director of Town Planning, Pune, has been mandated.

BEAG prepared a detailed document containing the various discrepancies. The document was discussed at the HCC meeting held on September 13, 2019, and the HCC approved the corrections. The changes will now be sent to the Government of Maharashtra for its approval.

BEAG continues to pursue the matter.