These will include hills and waterbodies not only in the old limits of the municipal corporation but also include those falling in the 38 villages that have merged with the corporation area recently.

While the final list of heritage structures is now awaiting the clearance of various statutory bodies of the the Pune Municipal Corporation and circulation among citizens through a notification, the heritage committee plans to compile the list of hilltops, hillslopes and water bodies in a short span of time, states P S Palande, chairman of the heritage committee.

The committee, which has thankfully woken up from four years of hibernation, is now working on identifying rivers, lakes, canals and other natural areas including the hills which form the lungs of the city. States Palande, ``We intend to immediately hold a meeting of the committee shortly to begin the process of finalising the list of natural heritage sites. In order to prevent any further delay, we decided to first submit the entire list of structures and not club the list of natural sites along with it.''

According to Sujit Patwardhan, member of the heritage committee, ``We have unanimously agreed that Pune's cultural heritage does not comprise only buildings. It is its hills, lake bodies and even rivers that gives it a unique identification and therefore, all these need to be conserved on a top priority basis.''

All is not hunky dory though. Although Palande is optimistic of compiling the list, without any delay, Patwardhan feels that ``I do not know how all of us are going to find time to survey these sites. Due to our busy schedule, we might sporadically get enthusiastic about it. We are working towards an arrangement wherein students of architecture could be given a stipend and be assigned to conduct surveys, under our guidance. In fact, I had floated such a proposal to Madhav Harihar, city engineer, about 10 months back wherein at a nominal cost, such students could carry out a survey of the extended areas of Pune. But no decision was taken. We hope the PMC will reconsider such a proposal again, if we have to save Pune's heritage from avaricious developers.''

Natural sites were included in the Mahabaleshwar heritage list, which include scenic spots, walks and rides. And now, looks like, Pune will follow suit. This list was suubmitted to the State Government, in the first week of July 1999.

It may be recalled that natural sites were included by the state govrnment as per the guidelines of the union ministry of environment which issued a circulars to all the states on June 25, 1995. It stated that heritage regulations should apply, apart from ``those buildings, artefacts, structures, areas and precincts of historic and/or aesthetic and/or architectural and/or cultural significance also to ``those natural features of environmental significance including sacred groves, hills, hillocks, wterbodies (and areas adjoining the same) open areas and wooded areas.''

According to Patwardhan, lakes such as the Model Colony lake, the Pashan Lake, the Mula and Mutha rivers, certain paars (a sitting area under the canopy of a large tree, which is a typical Puneri culture), hills and several wooded areas which form the lungs of this city, would be included in the list.

As for the supplementary list of structures and not having declared the entire Koregaon Park as heritage precinct, Palande explains that most of the stately buildings in the aristocratic locality have already been included in the first and the latest supplementary heritage lists. ``We found that Koregaon Park comprises old and new buildings, therefore it was difficult to term it as a heritage precinct as a whole, therefore we included all the structures that are stately which give a unique personality to the locality.''

Besides, he points out, Koregaon Park is governed by strict development control rules specially framed for the locality in the 1930s with much lesser floor area ration (FAR) than granted elsewhere in the city and with severe restrictions on the ground coverage as well as building height. These would help conserve the distinct character of Koregaon Park.

Some of the precincts that have been included are Tambat Ali and the Shimpi Ali in Kasaba Peth in downtown.