Six sites, including the Ganga ghats in Varanasi, temples of Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu and the Satpura Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, have been added to India’s tentative list of UNESCO world heritage sites, Culture Minister Prahlad Singh Patel said on May 19.

Mr. Patel said six of the nine sites submitted by the Archaeological Survey of India had been accepted by UNESCO for inclusion in the tentative list, which is a requirement before the final nomination of any site.

The recently-included proposals are the Maratha military architecture in Maharashtra, the Hire Bengal megalithic site in Karnataka and Bhedaghat-Lametaghat of Narmada Valley in Madhya Pradesh. The six proposals were included in the list on April 13, taking the total number of proposals from India to 48, according to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.