Daily Star 22/05/08 On the eve of celebrating 400 years of Dhaka, the city is losing its past glory to the current trend towards shiny new apartment buildings. With the aim to preserve the city's heritage sites, Urban Study Group (USG) arranged a heritage walk yesterday afternoon at Farashganj in the old part of the city. "One of the aims of our walk is to create awareness among people so that they come forward to save the heritage of the city," said Taimur Islam, a conservation architect of USG. Rows of newly constructed buildings are emerging as a prominent feature of Farashganj area, which was once famous for its heritage buildings. Still there remain some old buildings bearing the old features of the colonial period. Barabari, a heritage site with rich archaeological features, is now being demolished. On entering the house a mastaan (miscreant) tried to resist the campaigners and journalists from taking pictures of the house. Ruplal House, a 150-year old palatial house enlisted by the Department of Archaeology, is now turned into a godown of vegetables, spices and grains. Lack of awareness is one of the reasons of its demolition. "This is not a historical place. This is our godown," said spice trader at Ruplal House. "If we lose these sites, an irreparable damage will be done to the nation's values and wisdom," said architect Shamsul Wares, former president of Institute of Architects Bangladesh, while walking by the lanes. "If it goes on in this way, one day we will lose our identity," Dr Parveen Hasan of Department of Islamic History at Dhaka University took part in the walk. "The issue of economic benefits of the property owners is the main stumbling block to conservation of such heritage sites," said Taimur. "Transfer of Development Right (TDR) approach can be taken to save the financial benefits of the owners," he said. TDR is practised in major cities of India to protect the financial benefits of the owners of heritage buildings. It allows the balance of Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of a historic building to be transferred through sale of development right by providing additional development on a different site beyond its allowable FAR. The walk started from in front of Sutrapur Police Station and ended at Lalkuthi at Farashganj. Campaign for Heritage Conservation of USG Vice President Prof Nazrul Islam, architect Homaira Zaman, architect Abdur Rashid and engineer Sheikh Md Shahidullah took part in the walk.