Majuli, the largest riverine island in the world which is nestled in the lap of the Brahmaputra in Assam, Saytagraha sites associated with the freedom movement and the Cellular jail of Andaman islands are on the tentative list to qualify for inclusion in the World Heritage list.
Their dossier has been prepared by the Archaeological Survey of India, Minister of State for Culture Shripad Naik told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday in a written reply. He said that the nomination dossier of Majuli was returned by the World Heritage Centre in March 2012 as it was not complete according to the latest Operational Guidelines
of 2011. It was thereafter decided that the revised nomination would be prepared by the Assam Government, he said. The State Government was accordingly requested for the purpose, he added. Other popular sites that find place in the tentative list of the World Heritage sites of India as on April 15 are the Apatani cultural landscape of Arunachal Pradesh, Baha’i house of worship here, Chettinad village cluster of Tamil merchants, Chilika lake and Ekamra kshetra of Odisha, iconic saree weaving clusters of India, the Mound burial system of the Ahom dynasty in Assam and monuments of Srirangapatna island town.
Besides, mountain railways of India (extension), Padmanabhapuram Palace in Kerala, sacred ensembles of Hoysala, sites along the Badshahi Marg, The Grand Trunk Road, Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple at Srirangam, glorious Kaktiya temples and gateways, the Neolithic settlement of Burzahom and Thembang fortified village also figure in the tentative list.
To another query, Naik said that the Karnataka government had submitted six nominations including Mahamastakabisheka, Mysore Dasara, Kodavas of Kodagu, leather of puppetry,Yakshagana and Soligaru (Tribal of BR Hills) to the representative list of intangible culture heritage on humanity of the UNESCO. As the nomination documentations were incomplete, they could not be sent to UNESCO for consideration, he added.