'SAS Nagar' marks its arrival on Punjab map

Over the past decade, Chandigarh administration has been unable to check the auction of the city's heritage furniture abroad.

- 

Last month, a report was submitted by the Government College of Art, Sector 10, to the department of urban planning on the disappearance of heritage furniture, but it is yet to be made public.

Items designed, made or used by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, among others involved in Chandigarh's planning during the 1950s and 60s, including wooden tables, chairs, racks and benches, have been disappearing, only to reach international auction markets.

Since the 1990s, Chandigarh's heritage furniture, crafted from locally sourced teak and cane with durable cotton upholstery, has found its way to auction houses.

After public outcry, the Union home ministry banned the sale and export of the heritage furniture in 2011. But the auctions continue.

Local lawyer Ajay Jagga, also a member of the Heritage Items Protection Cell of the Chandigarh administration, says cases of auction surfaced after 2005 when a Chandigarh manhole was auctioned in the UK for about 10 lakh.