Chandigarh’s heritage furniture ,designed by city’s designer Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, is set to be auctioned by Paris based auction house-PIASA on January 28.

13 heritage items with bidding price between Rs  2.25 crore –Rs  3.14 crore will be auctioned by PIASA. The heritage items include chairs, armchairs, sofa, storage unit, tables among other items designed for Panjab University and Administrative building, Chandigarh.

The highest bidding price of Rs 48.6 lakh to Rs 66.3 lakh is kept for Library table from Panjab University.

Earlier, 11 heritage items belonging to Chandigarh were auctioned in Luxemburg on January 10.11 lots out of 14 heritage items designed by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret were sold during the auction for a sum of Rs 1,03,37,000 (1.03 cr) . The reserve price of heritage items was worth Rs 1.75 crore.

The highest price was fetched by a Teak Sofa at Rs 20.58 lakh (23000 Euros) during the auction.

Commenting on the auction of Chandigarh’s heritage items by foreign based auction houses, Ajay Jagga, member of Heritage Protection Cell, Chandigarh said that the auction by foreign auction houses of Indian heritage is all time high, causing huge loss to nation’s prestige apart from violation of ban on such illegal auctions.

“Such auctions of Chandigarh’s heritage have been going on since past many years despite a ban on export from sea and air ports of heritage items,” he said.

Jagga has written a letter to S Jayashankar, Union Minister of External Affairs and Jawed Ashraf, Ambassador of India to France requesting them to look into the issue.

He said that UNESCO may be approached on this issue as it is fighting a battle to combat trafficking of cultural objects.