With renowned foreign auction houses continue to put under hammer the heritage furniture belonging to Chandigarh, the UT Administration may soon come up with its own website displaying city’s heritage items in a bid to regulate its auction.

A website is proposed to be launched to give details of Chandigarh’s heritage furniture and other items for reference of all.

While the foreign auction houses continue to earn millions through the auction of Chandigarh’s heritage items, the Administration has so far acted as a mute spectator and merely paid lip-service.

A New York based auction house has reportedly put up Chandigarh’s heritage furniture, worth several lakhs on auction only this month.

Notably, members of Chandigarh Heritage Items Protection Cell have several times expressed apprehensions over the theft of city’s heritage items from various places here and easy flow of these items especially furniture to foreign markets.

Launching a separate website to display Chandigarh’s heritage items forms a part of an auction plan prepared by the Administration for the protection of city’s heritage. Display of heritage items on the website is aimed at apprizing others that it is Chandigarh’s property.To stop the foreign based auction houses to sell city’s heritage, the plan also proposed to request auction houses for records of procurement or purchase of furniture from Chandigarh, details of such export from India, international and Indian persons and agencies involved.

An advisory through Union Ministry of Culture and External Affairs to concerned country alerting them about the theft and sale of heritage furniture and replicas thereof should be issued in case of such auctions, the plan stated.

About the cases of theft of heritage, the plan stated that Police Department should investigate thoroughly existing leads to suppliers and agents to identify warehouses in India and abroad and channels of smuggling and supply of heritage items from Chandigarh to foreign auction houses.

There is a need to tally records provided by auction houses with cargo or shipping records to establish authenticity, the plan proposed.Apart from this, all items which are to be sold as junk or as original item including old furniture, paper drawings, concrete light fixtures, old pictures or paintings in Chandigarh, should be intimated to the Member Secretary so that if any heritage item is there, that can be withdrawn, the plan further added.

While a detailed plan has been chalked out by Administration for regulating auction of heritage items, it is yet to initiate process to put it into action for protection and restoration of city’s heritage.

When contacted, a city based advocate Ajay Jagga, who is a member of Chandigarh Heritage Items Protection Cell said that effective measures need to be adopted to stop the theft of heritage items and its flow to foreign auction houses from Chandigarh.“There have been thefts of heritage furniture from PGIMER and PU in the past. It is quite obvious that people from these institutes itself are involved in such thefts.

Foreign auction houses continue to earn millions by selling Chandigarh’s heritage furniture but here, people are yet to understand the value of the heritage items. The local authorities continue to fail to stop such auctions,” he added.

According to the inventory prepared by the UT Administration in the year 2012, Chandigarh has ‘12793’ heritage items designed by city’s creator French Architect Le Corbusier or his team associated with the founding and planning of the city in 1950s and 60s. There are 190 different categories of the heritage items including drawings, murals, models, tapestries, chairs, tables, among others.

A physical verification of identified heritage items is planned to be carried out by experts to ascertain its “genuineness” and also, to remove replicas from the heritage inventory.

The Administration has also planned to set up a museum in Government Printing Press, Sector 18 here to keep and showcase heritage items of Chandigarh.