Heritage palace ruined in Vadodara

Vadodara: The Laxmi Vilas Palace in Vadodara is one of the most beautiful heritage structures in India. It was built during the British Raj by the royal Gaekwad family. But the local civic body can't care less.

In a bid to widen the road, the municipality bulldozed the entire heritage wall, making it impossible now to resurrect it elsewhere as the royal family wanted.

It's owned by the Gaekwad royal family, and the palace was one of NDTV's nominees for the Seven Wonders of India.

A source close to the family tells NDTV: "We had no problem offering land for widening the road. But we had requested the municipality to ensure minimum damage to the heritage structure since we wanted to resurrect the wall elsewhere. Now it is impossible as they have bulldozed the entire wall. They wanted to show, be it a slum or a palace they would not differentiate. But it's a huge loss."

Palace officials say the civic body had promised to number each stone to ease the reassembling process, but failed to do so.

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The municipality claims it tried its best.

"It's not possible to break walls without causing any damage," said Balkrishna Shukla, Mayor of Vadodara.

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"Abroad the archeological department is consulted when any kind of work or construction happens to a monument. Only then it's done. In India we don't follow such rules. We begin digging anywhere. We were not consulted. If we were, we would have given the right advice on how to carry out the work," said K K Bhan, Archeology Department, Maharaja Sayaji Rao University.

It's certainly too late for that, but hopefully, a lesson learnt for the future.