In what is being hailed as a landmark piece of legislation, Parliament passed the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment and Validation) Act 2010 in March this year. The Act lists 3675 monuments (including those that were earlier under the protection of the Archaeological Survey of India) that will be protected and states that a 300-metre no-construction zone will come up around each one of them. The Centre has also set up a National Monuments Authority (NMA) that will map all ASI-protected monuments, frame and establish heritage by-laws, and regulate all repair work on such monuments.

The NMA, according to the Act, will be headed by a chairman and have five full-time and five part-time members, and all of them will have three-year terms. Twentyfour senior government officials posted across the country will form part of the NMA. Requests for renovations/repair works/modifications within heritage zones in various parts of the country will need to be approved by the local official before ground work begins. The NMA will recommend a classification, gradation and listing process to the Government for the various monuments within its purview. All its decisions will need to be published on the Government of India website and on the NMA’s own website. A report is to be prepared by the NMA every year on what it has accomplished. The Act and the Authority have been welcomed by all those concerned with heritage conservation but, at the same time, great reservations have been expressed about the effectiveness of both.

For one, the Act and the NMA will limit their writ to monuments protected by the Central Government alone. This means that States such as Tamil Nadu that have no comprehensive Heritage Act – apart from the limited rules of its Department of Archaeology – will continue to be left to their devices when it comes to heritage buildings and precincts under their purview. This is a big drawback, as the greatest loss to heritage is taking place in States that officially do not recognise protection of such buildings as a responsibility shared by both the citizens and the government. Secondly, the number of monuments listed – 3675 – is measly when compared to the actual number of historic structures in the country which must surely be running into several tens of thousands. And, lastly, the ASI will be responsible for not only filling the various posts in the NMA but also taking care of its day-to-day activities.

Those who are aware of the ASI’s ways of functioning question as to how the proposed NMA will be any different from the ASI. The latter, while peopled with personnel of unquestionable capability, is subject to all the bureaucratic bottlenecks of Government departments. It also faces chronic shortages of personnel and funds, as evinced by the pace with which preservation of monuments is done. And as for protection, very little is evident in most places beyond the official blue-board which lists out the punishments awaiting anyone caught in the act of vandalism.