India adds 6 new sites to UNESCO's tentative World Heritage list

On Monday, the Union Minister of Culture and Tourism, Gajendra Singh Shekawat, announced that six new sites, including the Mudumal megalithic Menhirs in Telangana and the palace fortresses of the Bundelas in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have been added to India’s tentative list by UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre. Other sites included are Kanger Valley National Park in Chattisgarh, Ashokan edict sites along the Mauryan routes (spread across multiple states), Chausath Yogini temples (across various states), and Gupta temples in North India (also spanning multiple states). 

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The minister mentioned this update in the Lok Sabha while responding to the BJP MP Sambit Patra’s suggestion of including Puri’s  Jagannath Rath Yatra in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. Shekawat welcomed Patra’s proposal.

The six new sites were added to lost on March 7, as confirmed by the Permanent Delegation of India to UNESCO. Inclusion in the tentative list is a prerequisite for a property’s future nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage list. With these additions, India now has 62 sites on the tentative list, an inventory of properties under consideration for UNESCO nomination. 

Currently, India has 43 properties inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list, including 35 cultural, 7 natural, and one mixed-category site. In 2024, India hosted the World Heritage Committee meeting, during which the Moidams, the mound-burial system of the Ahom Dynasty in Assam, received the UNESCO recognition.