Mughal structure suffers as ASI,Rlys spar over rights

With the two agencies sparring,there is no beautification,and railway sleepers are now dumped next to Nila Gumbad.

The Railways and ASI had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in March 2004,which transferred Railways land to the ASI free of cost. The condition: ASI would maintain and landscape it.

According to ASI officials,a landscape proposal was placed before the Railways in December 2007 after several rounds of talks,but the proposal was never passed.

While ASI wants a road running on the left of the structure to be shifted to its right,on Railways land (see graphic),the Railways rejected the proposal. Instead,it wants to construct a foot-overbridge near Nila Gumbad to connect it with Humayun’s Tomb.

The skywalk,an ASI official said,would only make the sight of the heritage sites uglier,adding that cracks are developing on Nila Gumbad’s dome due to vibrations caused by trains,running barely 20 metres from the monument.

No beautification: Railways
A senior Northern Railways official,on the other hand,alleged that ASI did nothing to landscape the area. Instead,it began raising a boundary wall in violation of the MoU,which “clearly stated that no construction could be carried out”. Besides the wall,ASI also started excavating the area,the official said.

“The work was stalled only after we raised objections. Though the land was transferred only for beautification,nothing was done.”

According to the official,“The MoU has expired now and there are no plans to extend it — ASI was informed about this last month.”

Proposals blocked: ASI

The ASI,meanwhile,alleges that all landscaping proposals were blocked. “We cleared an encroachment near the area,spending over Rs 1 crore,so that landscaping work could begin,” the ASI official said. “In 2007,we found an arcade that was the original wall of Nila Gumbad and connects with Humayun’s Tomb. But we had to stop excavation due to objections from Northern Railways.”

In its proposal,ASI had sought the road cutting through Humayun’s Tomb and Nila Gumbad to be shifted eastwards along the tracks so that the two monuments could be “incorporated”.

But a Railway official said,“On one side of Nizamuddin station is Barapullah Nallah,also a heritage site,and on the other are Humayun’s Tomb and

Nila Gumbad. There is no land for us to keep the material. So we decided to develop 10 or 15 metres of land around Nila Gumbad into a green patch.

“We might leave the arcade and fill the area to make a platform to store track material.”

On different roads
* ASI wants 4-metre bylane shifted to other side of Nila Gumbad — on Railways land
* Says it will clear way for heritage structures to come closer
* Railways reject proposal
* Instead,it proposes constructing a skywalk to connect Nila Gumbad with Humayun’s Tomb
* ASI says it will spoil the view