Running short of attendants,protected monuments in city fall prey to vandals

If one goes by official figures,most ‘protected’ monuments in the Capital do not have even one attendant round the clock. While there are around 174 protected monuments,the authorities have deputed only 148 attendants to look after them. And with prominent historical structures like Humayun’s Tomb and Qutab Minar demanding more attention,a significant number of the lesser-known ‘protected’ monuments are left with no attendants at all.

Recently,officials at Humayun’s Tomb received complaints of drug peddling and eve-teasing on the monument premises. As this world heritage site is in the process of being redeveloped and integrated with the Nila Gumbad,officials have felt the need to beef up security.

Though the Red Fort enjoys CISF deployment,the security personnel are responsible only for checking visitors who pass through the gate. The walls of the Qutab Minar,which underwent heavy restoration work recently,have been defaced with graffiti again.

Officials said incidents of vandalism have been on the rise,and even world heritage sites such as Humayun’s Tomb,Red Fort and Qutab Minar have not been spared. While admitting that there has been an acute shortage of monument attendants,senior ASI officials maintained that it was not humanly possible to stand guard at every monument. “A better option would be to sensitise visitors against defacing or destroying heritage structures.”

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was pulled up last year,when a Parliamentary Estimates Committee raised the issue of shortage of attendants. The committee pointed out that as the ASI was facing a shortfall of 5,000 monument attendants across the country,it was forced to depend on police and paramilitary personnel — leading to huge expenditure.

According to a Ministry of Culture estimate,the ASI requires 10,000 additional monument attendants,mostly drawn from the pool of ex-servicemen,for effective implementation of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment and Validation) Act,2010,which fixes the prohibited area to 200 metres of the monuments and provides for two years’ punishment and a fine of Rs 1 lakh for violation.

However,there has been little movement on augmenting the security force. At a time when the ASI has claimed to carry out extensive conservation works on the monuments to give the crumbling heritage structures a facelift,little has been done to protect them from vandals.

ASI Director General Gautam Sengupta refused to comment on the issue.