Being a port city, it has its own unique environmental features and cultural heritage.

Various projects were proposed in the previous Corporation budgets to preserves the city’s rich cultural heritage.

The Corporation’s annual budget for 2008-2009 had a proposal for an allocation of Rs 50 lakh to the Centre for Heritage, Environment and Development (C-HED) for its management. C-HED was asked to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) on various heritage projects. As the first step, C-HED prepared a DPR and submitted it to the Centre for listing it under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) projects. The proposal was repeated in the 2009-10 budget. In January 2010, one of the projects that was included in the heritage base map prepared by C-HED got the Centre’s nod -- the Rs 22-crore Broadway renovation project.

The project aims at heritage conservation, waste management, traffic management as well as vendor and street hawkers’ management at Broadway and Ernakulam market, the two busy shopping hubs in the city. Under the project, heritage road furniture will be built and public amenities like telephone booths, drinking water points and streetlights will be provided.

But the other promises made by the Corporation in its earlier budgets, including urban Renewal scheme for Vypeen Heritage Zone, Mattanchery Water Edge and Mattanchery Spices Museum, have reached nowhere.

The Corporation had also promised a modernised heritage centre at Mattanchery in three previous budgets. The plan was to renovate the existing ‘heritage centre’ at Paravana Junction for the convenience of foreign tourists. The design for a seven-storeyed building with enough parking space was also prepared. But the project did not materialise and the existing building is lying unattended.

“While preparing the budget, the officials were aware that many of these projects are not easy to implement. They are simply an eyewash. These projects are likely to figure in this year’s budget too,” said a Corporation official.