Red Fort row despite scheme approved by all-party panel

Team Herald

NEW DELHI: The Congress kicked up a row and other opposition parties lost no time in criticising the "adoption" of the Red Fort by Dalmia Bharat Group of cement and sugar factories on Saturday without realising that its two members on an all-party parliamentary standing committee had hailed as "a welcome step" the "Adopt the Heritage" scheme under which the government sealed the deal on April 9.

Those who praised the scheme in a report tabled in Parliament only last month by the standing committee on transport, tourism and culture are former union ministers of the Congress, Kumari Selja and K C Venugopal. Selja is a Rajya Sabha member from Haryana and Venugopal a Lok Sabha member from Kerala.

The union ministers and the Tourism Ministry officials are busy since Saturday clarifying that the scheme grants only access to create, operate and maintain tourist amenities and no handover of the Fort that remains under the Control of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as a government property.

Deputy director- general (tourism) Aashima Mehrotra handling the scheme said: "Only the ASI will sell entry tickets to the Red Fort. The company can charge fee only for the facilities it creates like toilets and washrooms but that too will be fixed in consultation with the government."

Trinamul Congress MP Derek O'Brien, who headed the 31-member standing committee, went a step beyond the Congress charge of "leasing out" the iconic 17th century fort built by India's first Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, with a tweet on Saturday: " "Wah! So here is acche din. Red Fort being 'sold '? Now other national treasures ready to be auctioned to highest bidders."

In the standing committee report on the demand of grants of the tourism ministry for 2018-19, the same O'Brien had said: "The committee notes that the initiative of Adopt a Heritage is a welcome step in the party of the ministry of tourism" and went on to stress that "the committee recommends that under the corporate social responsibility, major corporate (houses) may be compelled to adopt heritage sites." 

The parliamentary committee had, in fact, given a push to the scheme as its report tabled in Parliament on March 6 says: "The committee also recommends that the detailed plans for improvement of infrastructure and basic amenities have to be laid down by the ministry/ govt agencies and it should not be left ( to) the discretion of the organisation( s) which are adopting the heritage sites. Experience and experimentation in the initial two or three projects will make all the difference in planning for other future projects that the ministry will take up for development." 

O'Brien's Trinamul Congress insisted in a statement: "Read the MoU . It is virtual lease of the property and turning Red Fort into a Disneyland.... No one in the  committee approved all this wholesale sale. 

Committee had just said it was open to exploring toilets and water."

A tourism ministry official, however, said the private parties, Dalmia in this case, will only get access to maintain tourism-related facilities and no handover of the heritage monument. Also, he said the scheme is essentially a non-revenue generating project and the private party will be allowed only a limited visibility, not prominent, for the facilities it creates as no question of turning it into a Dalmia Fort.

The idea is that the private stakeholder can take responsibility to operate, upgrade and maintain the amenities like washrooms. All that the MoU permits is to carry out "semi- commercial activities" like running a tourism facilitation centre with Wi- Fi, a small souvenir shop and a cafeteria selling food cooked outside the premises, or battery- operated carts from the parking lot to the gates at a reasonable fee that the company may charge but not decided by it as it too requires approval of an inter-ministerial committee and the money so earned will be ploughed back to make it a self-sustaining model, the official said.

Architect AGK Menon, a consultant to the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, expressed surprise at the protests over involving the private companies in running the heritage monuments. He cited the example of the Humayn's Tomb in the capital that was given to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture for conservation and it renovated and developed the premises. He said the private parties cannot take advantage unless the ASI is lax as a supervising authority in all heritage monuments and sites.

The scheme was envisaged by the government last year to basically invite the corporate sector to help maintain facilities at the heritage places as the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and take benefit of the tax relief under the Income Tax Act.