By IANS,
New Delhi: The government Tuesday decided to set up an expert committee to draw up a national register of the country’s intangible cultural heritage.
The panel will advise on the mechanism of overarching inter-ministerial coordination to preserve and promote intangible heritage and dying cultural traditions.
The decision was taken at a meeting of Coordination Committee on Living and Diverse Cultural Traditions, chaired by Culture Minister Chandresh Kumari Katoch.
The Coordination Committee is tasked with recommending areas of preparation of a national inventory on intangible cultural heritage, archives, education and outreach programmes.
It has historians and culture personalities such as Kapila Vatsyayan, Sitakant Mahapatra, G.N. Devy, Kartikeya V. Sarabhai and Peter Ronald De Souza and secretaries of several ministries as members.
At the meeting, the committee also decided to turn its focus on people since without them, living traditions could not be sustained.
It was also decided that the objective of the coordination committee should be to oversee preparation of an exhaustive listing of Indian cultural expressions and make recommendations on providing recognition and associated benefits to creators of such unique expressions.