WARANGAL: After seven years of persistent efforts of the Kakatiya Heritage Trust (KHT), Palampet’s historical Ramappa Temple has been sent as India’s nomination to be included in the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites. Disclosing this to media persons here on Tuesday, former advisor to the State government, BV Papa Rao along with M Panduranga Rao, trustee of Kakatiya Heritage Trust, confirmed the same.
Named after its Shilpakar (designer/architect) Ramappa, the temple is known for its eclectic mix of ideas, materials and designs. Given its rich history and delicate ornamentations, the Kakatiya-era temple has long been on the tentative list of the World Heritage Sites.
It was in 2012 when the KHT began preparing a dossier proposing the Ramappa Temple to be included in India’s nominations for the World Heritage Site list. With technical assistance from GVSS Suryanarayana Murthy, the dossier was completed in 2015 and submitted to the Centre in 2016.
That year Centre had two nominations — Ramappa Temple and Jaipur City — of which it chose only the latter. This time around the State government’s help was sought. “After a sincere follow up by the State government and the heritage trust, the dossier was sent to UNESCO as India’s nomination for the year 2018 along with Jaipur City. But the Centre only sent Jaipur City’s nomination. Hence, this time we sought the CM’s help and he wrote a letter to the Centre as well as ASI,” Papa Rao explained.