An 800-year-old fortress that once guarded the Deccan's diamond routes now pulses with light after dark — and Union Coal and Mines Minister G. Kishan Reddy is reminding India exactly how it got there. On Friday, 7 August 2026, Reddy took to X to highlight the ₹22 crore facade illumination and Light & Multimedia Sound Show project he commissioned at Golkonda Fort, Hyderabad, during his earlier tenure as Union Minister for Tourism and Culture.

What ₹22 Crore Built at Golkonda

The project is not a simple floodlight upgrade. Reddy's post outlines a layered intervention: state-of-the-art facade illumination wrapping the fort's battlements, combined with 3D projection mapping that casts the fort's Qutb Shahi and Kakatiya history directly onto its stone walls. A Light and Multimedia Sound Show narrates the fort's arc — from a mud fort under the Kakatiyas to the diamond-trading capital of the medieval world — for visitors who arrive after sunset.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), tagged in the post, is the custodial agency responsible for maintaining the site. Such technology-driven interpretation projects at ASI monuments have been rolled out at multiple heritage sites across India, aiming to lift domestic and international footfall while generating revenue that feeds back into conservation.

Golkonda's 800-Year Stage

Golkonda Fort, situated on the western edge of Hyderabad, is among India's most visited ASI-protected monuments. Built originally in the 13th century by the Kakatiya dynasty and later expanded dramatically by the Qutb Shahi sultans, the fort controlled access to the Kollur and Golconda diamond mines — the source of legendary stones including the Koh-i-Noor and the Hope Diamond. Its acoustic engineering, which allows a hand-clap at the entrance gate to be heard at the hilltop pavilion nearly a kilometre away, remains one of its most celebrated features. That same acoustics now serves as a natural theatre for the multimedia show.

Heritage Tourism as a Policy Tool

The initiative sits within a broader central government push — anchored partly through the PRASAD scheme launched in 2014-15 — to develop heritage and pilgrimage sites with modern visitor infrastructure. Illumination and projection-mapping projects have since appeared at forts and monuments from Rajasthan to Tamil Nadu, each designed to extend the visitor day, increase per-capita spend, and give conservation efforts a revenue argument beyond grants alone.

Reddy, now heading the Coal and Mines portfolio and serving as BJP Telangana state president, is invoking the Golkonda project as a signature of his cultural tenure — and implicitly, as a marker of BJP's development record in a state the party is working to consolidate politically.

Golkonda once traded the world's most coveted diamonds. Under the lights, it is trading in something newer: the idea that heritage and technology are not rivals but partners — and that India's ancient monuments can earn their own future.