Having pioneered India’s first-of-its-kind regulations in 1995 to protect heritage buildings, Mumbai now appears set to see much of its architectural legacy obliterated. Mumbai’s draft Development Plan (DP) 2034, which will govern land use in the city for the next 20 years, has stripped the protective cover off two-thirds of its 1500 heritage structures, sites and precincts through an act of omission.

Some of the glaring exclusions are the listed Grade I Town Hall, one of the finest examples of neoclassical architecture in India and which houses the Asiatic Society of Bombay; the landmark Marine Drive precinct, whose collection of Art Deco buildings are the second largest in the world after Florida’s Miami beach; many of the Victorian Neo-Gothic and Indo-Saracenic structures that adorn the Fort precinct and the British-era open spaces including the Grade I Oval Maidan.

The draft DP 2034 was recently released by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The issue came to light this week when the statutory Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee took up the DP for scrutiny. The earlier heritage regulations, meant to protect and preserve such structures, were applicable to everything on the government-notified heritage list. Under the revised rules, protection is extended only to structures that figure on the BMC’s new land use plan.