HYDERABAD: Aggalayya Gutta in Hanamkonda, Warangal is all set to become a tourist attraction under the National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY).
Kakatiya Urban Development Authority (KUDA), the implementing agency of the scheme, has already spent `1.3 crore to develop the heritage site.
The site has a 30-feet-tall engraved statue of the 16th Jain Tirathankar Shanthinatha and a 13-feet-tall statue of 23rd Tirthankar Parshvanatha on a huge boulderstone on a hillock.
The Shanthinatha statue is the second tallest Tirthankaras statue in South India after Karnataka’s Bahubali Tirthankara, and the plan is to make it a Jain Vanam.
Marri Yadav Reddy, Chairman, KUDA says, “People often struggle a lot, since there was no proper way to reach the hilltop. So we carved steps out of the rock to make it easy for people to reach the heritage site. Park at the entrance and on top of the hill, street lights and night lighting have also been developed. We will inaugurate the heritage tourism spot next month,” he added.
They are further developing the area around the rock which will provide tourists with access to other Jain engravings. A 20-seater cave has also been carved for people to visit the centuries-old idol of Mahaveer Vardhaman, which was found inside a hill last year.
Archaeology enthusiast Aravind Arya Pakide says, “Aggalayya Gutta was named after a popular physician and surgeon of 11th century AD who constructed a ‘Jinalaya’ that served as a research centre for teaching doctrines of religion, medicine, and surgery.”