New Delhi: The Archaeological Survey of India has denied reports claiming the national conservator was giving up its exclusive mandate to conserve protected monuments and open the space for private players. Instead, the Ministry of Culture has decided to do away with the time-consuming work of preparing Detailed Project Reports by the Archaeological Survey of India.
Now, private players wanting to conserve monuments as part of their corporate social responsibility can directly hire a private conservator to prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR), saving precious time.
“It is misleading that ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) is going to open up the conservation of protected monuments to the private players. There is no policy shift,” Nandini Sahu Bhattacharya, spokesperson and joint director general of ASI, said, adding that earlier the agency solely used to prepare the DPR for the conservation work.
But the amount given by donors as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds lies unused because of the delay in DPR by ASI.
“But now, the donors have a say in the making of DPR. They can hire a conservation architect for this work. However, the final conservation work will be done under the supervision of ASI,” she said.
The core conservation and preservation work of around 3,685 centrally protected monuments across the country has been under the ASI’s mandate, which functions under the Ministry of Culture.
The ASI is spending nearly half of its budget on the conservation of monuments. Apart from the government allocation, the corporates, NGOs, individuals and financial institutions are partnering through their CSR for promoting the cultural heritage of India.
Bhattacharya said the donations are given to the National Cultural Fund (NCF), and after that, the amount is spent on the respective monuments.
“It will make the process easy. Earlier, the conservation architects were hired by the ASI. Now the donors will hire them, which will make the process a little smoother,” said Bhattacharya, denying the complete involvement of private players in the conservation of monuments.
In 2017, a scheme—Adopt a Heritage—was launched to develop and maintain tourist amenities at heritage sites and increase corporate engagement. But the scheme didn’t succeed due to several shortcomings, resulting in Adopt a Heritage 2.0 in 2023.
Also read: Kiran Nadar Museum appoints Louvre Abu Dhabi head Manuel Rabaté as its CEO and director
Delays in conservation work
In Parliament, Rajya Sabha MP Fauzia Khan asked the Culture Minister Gajendra Shekhawat in December last year about any government decision to open the conservation work to private players.
“A donor/sponsor, while making contributions to the NCF, can indicate a project to be taken up for conservation or developing amenities around any monument. The conservation of protected monuments is carried out by ASI, and the same is maintained by them,” replied Shekhawat.
The NCF was set up in 1996 to mobilise resources from the private sector. For the last few years, donors repeatedly demanded that the ministry change its approach so that their CSR funds could be spent earlier.
On its website, NCF maintains a list of the donors. Among the donors are the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC), State Bank of India (SBI), Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), and Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL).
“The amount we are giving is under the CSR fund. We have to show the spending every year in our balance sheet. But due to delays in the process, the amount has not been utilised. We requested the government to look into this matter, and their recent step is welcoming,” said one of the donors on condition of anonymity.
However, the ASI itself has been outsourcing conservation architects for their work across the country. Bhattacharya said there are many private firms and conservation architects through which ASI is doing the conservation work at the monuments.
“Giving more autonomy to the donors will speed up the work at the monuments. The government process for approval is very lengthy and tedious. Hundreds of Indian monuments need urgent attention, and the recent decision will make some change,” said a conservation architect empanelled with the ASI.
The ASI first engaged a private player in 1997 for the conservation of the garden area around Humayun’s Tomb. It brought on board the Agha Khan Trust. This was followed by the conservation of the whole Tomb in 2007.
“It was the first-ever privately undertaken conservation effort on any national monument in India,” said Ratish Nanda, Projects Director of Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) in India, emphasising the need for private partnerships to become common in the country.
In the past few years, the culture ministry initiated some policy interventions to involve corporates. “But one of our failures is that we have not been able to ensure that this is replicated one thousand one million times across India. Because all of India’s monuments need it,” said Nanda.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)