As 24 centrally-protected monuments in India, including the Barakhamba Cemetery located at the Capital’s Connaught Place, continue to remain “untraceable,” a Parliamentary panel has noted that the Union ministry of culture has done little to follow up; neither has it tried to trace the monuments, or, carry a survey of other monuments which were not part of the audit.
Citing a performance audit of the CAG, which had included a joint physical inspection along with the Archaeological Survey of India of over 1,655 monuments and sites, the Rajya Sabha standing committee on transport, tourism and culture has said that it is “perturbed” to find that “the Barakhamba Cemetery in the very heart of the Capital city” is among the untraceable monuments.
In all, there are 3,693 centrally-protected monuments and sites in the country.
“If even monuments in the Capital city cannot be maintained properly, it does not bode well for monuments in remote places in the country,” the committee’s report states.
Apart from the Barakhamba Cemetery, the untraceable monuments include ruins of a temple circle at Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur dating to 1000 AD, two Kos Minars – one at Faridabad’s Mujesar and another at Kurukshetra’s Shahabad, a 12th Century Temple at Rajasthan’s Baran, besides another monument at the Capital – the Inchla Wali Gumti at Mubarakpur Kotla.
The committee also pulled up the culture ministry for not attempting to find out how many other monuments were untraceable, as the audit was carried out only among 1,655 of the 3,693 centrally-protected monuments.
The ministry, in a written reply to the Committee, said that untraceable monuments were all ASI-protected monuments, but their exact location and condition could not be determined, due to various factors, such as “rapid urbanisation, non-availability of proper details about their location in the gazette notification, difficulties in tracing in remote locations, dense forests, etc.”
The CAG report of 2013 had declared 92 monuments to be “missing,” but the ASI has since then managed to find some – 42 monuments have been identified and out of the remaining 50 monuments, 14 are affected by rapid urbanisation, 12 are submerged by reservoir or dams and the location of the remaining 24 remain untraceable.
Many of these sites, the committee noted, continue to be unguarded, with only 6.7 per cent or 248 sites having a security system.
“The Committee notes with dismay that out of the total requirement of 7,000 personnel for protection of monuments, the government could provide only 2,578 security personnel at 248 locations due to budgetary constraints,” the report states.