Murad Shah lays foundation stone of rehabilitation work of historic Sehwan Fort being carried out by Endowment Fund Trust
Sindh Courier Report
Sehwan
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah suggested on Saturday declaring Sehwan, the historic town of province as the ‘Protected Heritage Town’, and asked for initiating the process of legislation in this regard.
“The provincial departments of Culture and Law, Commissioner of Hyderabad and the Endowment Fund Trust (EFT) can jointly take initiative for preparing a draft law to declare the Sehwan as ‘Protected Heritage Town, as it has a history dating back thousands of years,” he said while addressing the stone-laying ceremony of the rehabilitation work of ancient Sehwan Fort here.
The Conservation and Restoration work of the Sehwan Fort has been assigned to Endowment Fund Trust for Preservation of the Heritage of Sindh. The Sehwan Fort is more than two thousand years old as according to historians it was built in 4th Century B.C. The fort has 15 meters height and 1.27km length. The EFT has also carried out conservation and restoration work of Naukot Fort and Rani Kot, known as the Great Wall of Sindh.
Lauding the works carried out by EFT, Chief Minister said rehabilitation of Sehwan Fort, having the mysterious history, was really a challenge. “The EFT has not demanded funds for this project and is doing all this from its own funds,” he said adding that ‘I have been told that EFT has Rs.1.6 billion in its account’.
“The Sehwan town and the Fort has thousands of years old history, as they existed even before the invasion of Alexander the Great, but unfortunately the heritage of Sindh has been utterly neglected in the past,” Murad Shah said adding that now his government is taking steps for conservation of Sindh’s cultural and historic heritage.
Chief Minister also underlined the need of international assistance, funds, historic references and documents, and urged the scholars, historians and cultural organizations for submitting their recommendations to the government in this regard. “We must formulate proposals as per priorities for moving ahead in the culture sector,” he exhorted.
Shah asserted that the people of Sindh should have natural love for their cultural values.
Suggesting the EFT to establish a Conservation Laboratory somewhere in Dadu district, Chief Minister also endorsed the idea of setting up of Trans Indus Research Institute for Cultural Studies and assured of allocating funds for this purpose. He also urged EFT and Culture Department for imparting training to the youths so that employment opportunities could be created for them.
He agreed to a suggestion of establishing museum at Sehwan Fort and said for that the rest house building in the fort could be turned into museum. “We can build rest house at some other place.”
Referring to certain cities named after the Alexander, where Alexander Festivals are held yearly, Shah suggested organizing world conference – Sehwan and the Alexander in Sehwan early next year. “A committee should be constituted to start work on organizing such conference,” he asked the authorities concerned.
Shah said the Sehwan and surrounding areas have cultural and historical importance and development of this area would help promote tourism. “We have not been able to do a lot in this regard but this region, like rest of Sindh, has great potential of tourism, and we would focus on it.”
Later, the Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah visited Abdullah Shah Institute of Medical Science and inaugurated 24-bed ICU.
Earlier, on his arrival at Sehwan, while responding to the newsmen queries, Murad Shah told that the Election Commission has announced LG polls in June this year for which delimitation work has been started and hopefully it would be completed by March.
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