UNESCO includes Indian part of Kailash Mansarovar in tentative list of world heritage sites

UNESCO has included the Indian part of Kailash Mansarovar in its tentative list of world heritage sites, sources in the Culture Ministry said Sunday.

It was in April that the Archeological Survey of India, which is under the Culture Ministry, sent the proposal mooted by the Ministry of Environment and Forests to UNESCO.

In the proposal, Kailash Mansarovar is in the mixed category — both as a natural as well as a cultural heritage.

Covering an area of 6,836 sq km within India, the area is flanked in the east by Nepal and bordered by China on the north.

The Indian site is part of the larger landscape of 31,000 sq km referred to as the 'Kailash Sacred Landscape' constituting the Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar in the remote south-western portion of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China and adjacent districts in the far-western region of Nepal.

Both China and Nepal have proposed the landscape as a world heritage site to UNESCO.

If it comes through, Uttarakhand, a major transit point of the annual Kailash Mansarovar yatra, will benefit as communities living along the yatra route can be incorporated in the plan to develop sustainable tourism for the site.

The Indian portion of the landscape in the State of Uttarakhand comprises four major watersheds viz. the Panar-Saryu, the Saryu-Ramganga, the Gori-Kali and the Dhauli-Kali.