Not Merely Tourist Destination

Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar is developing
‘The City within a City’ project in Udaipur
as a model of sustainable development in a heritage city

Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar has an idea. He wants to give a livelihood to the six lakh people of Udaipur. He began concentrating on a model of continued sustainable development of Udaipur where the endeavour is not to identify the city with any one particular monu¬ment, concept or idea. no matter how unique it may sound.

"Udaipur is not merely a tourist destination," says Mewar, emphatically. "While sustaining the essence of the past, it has to continually update itself with modern amenities." The city is a self sufficient model of a dynamic city in the city palace complex in Udaipur.

Systematic and sustained efforts to conserve, preserve, restore and develop the heritage of the city palace complex are being addressed through the prism of the City Within the City project. Mewar has roped in Pankaj Mishra as GM, corporate pro¬jects for ‘the City within a City’ and Batul Raaj, a young architect from Ahmedabad. All this effort is documented in a book, The City within a City - Volume 1: Jagmandir on Lake Pichola by Dipti Khera and Raju Mansukhani.