swanky malls state of the art residential townships and commercial spaces are mushrooming in the business hub that ahmedabad is inching closer towards becoming a metro city while all this development is focused on the periphery at the heart of the city is its centuriesold heritage that lives and breathes to tell the tale of community living and impeccable town planning we take a look at ahmedabad as a nominee for the prestigious label of world heritage citya heritage treasure troveapart from a beautiful exterior design and intricate wooden carvings the pols of the walled city depict impressive town planning the houses are earthquake resistant have rainwater harvesting are vaastucompliant and very systematic all pols have a chabutro bird feeder and a blackboard says debashish nayak director of centre for heritage management it is important to hold on to the community assets so engaging the local people is the best way to protect and restore the old city ahmedabad is huge compared to other world heritage cities and it is a living changing developing city so it has become a lab of sorts for other cities to study and base their heritage management upon it is a process he addsthe processbeing nominated does not mean it is a contest where you win or lose unesco offers guidance and feedback so a city can improve and make progress continuously p k ghosh the chairman of ahmedabads heritage conservation committee explains that the impending unesco visit is for them to verify whether the claims made by us are fully sustained in reality we have presented what we think make us worthy of being a contender for instance harmonic community living gives the people a sense of identity and belonging there is also the intangible heritage of citys connect with mahatma gandhi so the dossier has been prepared with these points whether this resonates with the visiting authorities and whether they agree with it or not is a different matter he says work in progressahmedabad has been on unescos tentative list since 2011 rajiv patel cofounder of a communitybased resource centre that promotes cultural heritage says we have all the raw materials that make for a great case and there is no dearth of talented people who can spearhead these operations there are many positives ours is a city with maximum heritage regulations and we have a heritage department in the municipal corporation the necessary ground work is being done to the best of the systems capacity but what i think can be improved is the method right now it is a makefix method what we need is a top down approach the city has executed more complicated projects so this is definitely doable and it does not require huge investment the only thing required is clearcut directions from the central government to the state government he opines recognition with responsibilitydespite all the good things that make the city a strong contender there is always something more that needs to be