INTACH to document heritage sites along Mahanadi river

Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) today launched a programme for documentation of the tangible and intangible heritage sites along both sides of Mahanadi river, sources in it said today.
Seven teams of culture enthusiasts will cover nearly 1000 kilometres on both side of the river Mahanadi under the project.
INTACH chairman Maj Gen(Retd) L K Gupta said the tangible and intangible heritage along the river will be documented and the important heritage structures will be photographed and video-graphed. It will be a road map for the conservation workers, historians, students and researchers.
While the tangible and intangible heritages along the course of Mahanadi in Chhattisgarh will be documented by the team of INTACH there, teams from Odisha INTACH will list and document the heritage along it in Odisha.

Gupta, who flagged off the teams, said that civilisation had grown on the banks of the river and asked the teams to document them so that the community is benefitted.
The teams will collect data, which will be documented after being scrutinised, in prescribed format.

Odisha convener of INTACH, A B Tripathy said the cultural mapping of the Mahanadi, which is the lifeline of Odisha, will be done under the project. Around 50 per cent of the total course of the river flows in the state of Odisha. The INTACH teams will cover around six to seven districts for the cultural mapping in the state, he said.

Deepak Panda, who is leading the Sambalpur INTACH team, said all the major settlements in the state have come up along Mahanadi and there are numerous tangible heritages like temples, palaces, forts dot it.
Moreover, intangible heritage like folklore, songs and dances, tribal art and craft have also thrived along the river.