Foundation for Conservation & Research of Urban Traditional Architecture, India

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The Foundation for Conservation and Research of Urban Traditional Architecture, (CRUTA Foundation) represents an on-going experiment in a public participation based programme of heritage restoration, conservation, neighbourhood and community development, and tourism promotion.

This approach which is ultimately far less demanding of scarce financial resources is capable of numerous, unplanned spin-off developments and initiatives. The approach has been tried and it has worked.

Inspired by successful restoration and conservation efforts in different parts of the world, and with an urge to work towards the revitalisation of neighbourhoods and communities, CRUTA Foundation, a Calcutta-based registered trust, has been conducting a walk focused restoration, community based conservation, neighbourhood development, and tourism programme since 1990 in North Calcutta.

CRUTA has managed to restore and conserve some of the oldest, most graceful buildings in the forgotten northern quarter of Calcutta. Residents are learning new things about their city and they are taking pride in their discoveries and their accomplishments. Through its work, CRUTA renews the heritage of education, enlightenment, public service, and reform that North Calcutta traditionally stood for.

Since 1992, CRUTA has also been working in Burdwan, West Bengal. Here, repair and restoration of the Mahtab Trust's temple complexes has been a means to mobilise people and organisations towards a nascent local movement and system for urban heritage restoration and conservation. In order to carry this to a higher level of impact, effectivity and outreach, CRUTA is presently defining a "Bengal Urban Heritage Corridor Project".

The ideas are rooted in the experience of working in North Calcutta and Burdwan, and are in the nature of lessons for the next phase of action in these places. Stated in the form of a concept, this could also be something others, elsewhere, can seek to do. CRUTA seeks to carry forward and build on its work by joining hands with such efforts wherever possible.

CRUTA is backed by, and has access, to a multi-disciplinary network of experts, resource persons and groups with substantial experience in action-research, programme development and management, policy development, micro-level development programmes, communication and public education.