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

While the final list of heritage structures is now awaiting clearance by various statutory bodies of the PMC and circulation among citizens through a notification, the UHCC plans to compile the list of hilltops, hillslopes and water bodies in a short span of time, says UHCC Chairman P S Palande.

The committee, after a four-year hiatus, is now working on identifying rivers, lakes, canals and other natural areas including the hills which form the lungs of the city.Said Palande, ``We intend to 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 UHCC member Sujit Patwardhan, ``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.''

However, not all is hunky dory. Although Palande is optimistic of compiling the list, without any delay, Patwardhan is uncertain how all committee members are going to find time to survey the sites. ``We are working towards an arrangement wherein students of architecture could be given a stipend and be assigned to conduct surveys, under our guidance,'' he said.

Patwardhan added that he had floated a proposal for the same to cityengineer Madhav Harihar about 10 months ago 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,'' he said.

Natural sites in Mahabaleshwar were the first in the country to be included in the heritage list. The list was submitted to the State government in the first week of July 1999. Pune will soon follow suit.

It may be recalled that natural sites were included by the State government following a circular issued by the Union Ministry of Environment to all 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, water bodies (and areas adjoining the same) open areas and wooded areas.''

According to Patwardhan, water bodies such as the ModelColony lake, Pashan Lake, Mula and Mutha rivers, certain paars (a sitting area under the canopy of a large tree), 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 declaring 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 buildingheight. 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.