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HERITAGE: CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP
Branding Monuments
As a cash-strapped ASI struggles to keep its mandate,
the private sector steps in to conserve the crumbling edifices
of our past
By S. Kalidas
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HISTORIC TIE-UP: Kumar and Tata
join hands to preserve and promote the Taj Mahal
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In the market age,
with its attendant culture of shrinking government budgets, the Department
of Culture (DOC) is easily singled out as a non-priority area. Now the
financial crunch has come to such a pass that the Archaeological Survey
of India (ASI) has been forced to step down from its imaginary ivory tower
and admit that it can no longer fulfil even its basic mandate of preserving
and tending to archaeological monuments and sites.
With 3,700 "protected" monuments and
over 10,000 unprotected monuments under its care, the ASI is hard put
to pay even the security guards at its "protected" sites, leave
alone think of conservation, restoration, illumination, public facilities,
publications or promotions. "The ASI has an annual budget of Rs 156
crore and after salaries and expenses, it can only spare around Rs 7,600
per monument every year," confessed Ananth Kumar, Union minister
for tourism and culture, last week.
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UP FOR ADOPTION
Hampi, the magnificent capital of the Vijaynagara empire (left),
a World Heritage Site, desperately needs funding for even the basic
of conservation tasks and tourist facilities.
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SPRUCED UP
Humayun's Tomb in Delhi (right) has been cleaned up and illuminated
thanks to a contribution from the Aga Khan Foundation and the Oberoi
Hotels.
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Given this rather bleak scenario, the summer
solstice (June 21) brought a new ray of hope for both the ASI and the
tourism industry. In a promising turn of events, private industry is poised
to join hands with the Union Government to safeguard and promote historical
monuments. At a high-profile ceremony, attended by Ratan Tata, Tata Sons
chairman, Kumar and Rajnath Singh, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the
Taj Group of Hotels and the ASI signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU)
for conservation and promotion of-no prizes for guessing-the Taj Mahal
at Agra.
To harness private resources for cultural projects,
the DOC had floated the National Culture Fund (NCF) in 1996. But with
many hiccups and sporadic peripheral activity, the NCF has been more or
less fundless and brain-dead despite the many celebrity names it once
featured in its committee. The only exception to NCF's inertia perhaps
has been the sprucing up and partial illumination of Humayun's Tomb in
Delhi with a donation from the Aga Khan Foundation and the Oberoi Hotels.
However, even this project is running behind schedule and the promised
fountains in the Charbagh gardens are far from functioning. The gallery
of photographs passing for a site museum is a (literally) dark joke and
if toilets have been put in place, finding them could be an expedition
in itself.
But more importantly, the attitudes are changing.
Rather than making it difficult for private parties to access archaeological
sites the ASI is now actively seeking synergies. "Let us (the Government
and the corporate sector) join hands to preserve our past," implores
Komal Anand, non-archaeologist director-general of the ASI. Better late
than never, Kumar and the DOC team are finally seeking sponsors and collaborators
desperately. So is the Uttar Pradesh chief minister. With abysmal tourist
turnouts and too many heritage properties falling to pieces, Rajnath has
decided to hand over 36 such sites to private parties to be restored and
run as hotels or offices.
These are, for a country like India, bold steps
because the ever-paranoid, parochial clique of conservatives in the media,
the BJP-RSS and beyond are already crying hoarse about the "sell
out". On the other hand, a conservator-turned hotelier like Aman
Nath, who has set up some very successful heritage resorts after restoring
old crumbling properties around the country, is elated: "The Government
needs to be congratulated for involving the citizens in the process of
preserving their own heritage rather than relegating them to the role
of helpless onlookers to its destruction."
The NCF and ASI have now brought out a brochure
listing 38 archaeological sites that are in dire need of fiscal support.
These include World Heritage Sites like the Ajanta caves in Maharashtra,
the Alchi monastery in Ladakh, Fatehpur Sikri near Agra, Hampi in Karnataka
and even the Red Fort in the national capital besides many lesser known
but equally important places.
The NCF has floated an "adopt-a-monument"
scheme. Under the NCF bye-laws, not only are corporate and individual
donations eligible for full exemption from income tax, but also these
can be both site and project specific. Corporate donors will be guaranteed
promotional mileage like signages at the sites they may be funding and
the use of the monument's image in their advertisements. Donors can also
have a say in the management of their money and help the ASI in obtaining
the best possible advice and services of experts in the fields of restoration
and conservation to carry out the projects.
Affirming his personal commitment to the idea,
Tata pointed out it was a sad fact that India with all its wealth of history
and culture attracted only two million foreign tourists a year when even
a small city-state like Singapore got seven million. "We are committed
to give Rs 1.87 crore for the upgradation of facilities at the Taj and
its environs in the first phase," he announced. Hopefully going beyond
cosmetic packaging, the Tatas will also identify experts and help the
ASI evolve a long-term plan for the restoration and preservation of the
world's most famous monument to love.
The Taj, of course, fits the Tata Group's corporate
image like a mascot. Hopefully, they will plough back some of the profits
they earn through their Taj chain of hotels to promote the monument, not
merely the brand. Perhaps, then the popular ad-line of their competitors
in the tea business, "Wah Taj!" could well work for them too.
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