{"id":37402,"date":"2023-09-23T01:56:49","date_gmt":"2023-09-22T20:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=37402"},"modified":"2025-04-22T13:53:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T08:23:40","slug":"transport-tourism-and-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/transport-tourism-and-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport Tourism and Culture: For pruning monuments list and making ASI more effective"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in Today\u2019s Article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is the AMASR Act 1958?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is the AMASR (Amendment) Act 2010?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>About the AMASR (Amendment) Bill<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Highlights of the PSC on Transport, Tourism and Culture (359th) Report<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>According to the Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) on Transport Tourism and Culture, centrally protected monuments should be categorised on the basis of their national significance.<\/li>\n<li>The views of the panel are in alignment with the Government, which plans to reintroduce the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (AMASR) (Amendment) Bill.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the AMASR Act 1958?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It provides for the &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Preservation (<\/strong>of ancient and historical monuments, archaeological sites and remains of national importance, which are over 100 years old)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Regulation (<\/strong>of archaeological excavations)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Protection (<\/strong>of sculptures, carvings and other like objects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>3,691 Centrally Protected Monuments or Sites are located in India and are guarded by the <strong>Archaeological Survey of India<\/strong> (<strong>ASI<\/strong>) &#8211; a Ministry of Culture agency, which functions under the provisions of this act.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the AMASR (Amendment) Act 2010?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In order <strong>to strengthen the penal provisions<\/strong> to prevent encroachments and illegal construction close to the monuments, the 1958 Act was amended in 2010.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The amendments provide for the creation of a<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Prohibited <\/strong>area 100 metre around every national monument where no construction, public or private is permitted.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Regulated <\/strong>area 200 metres beyond the prohibited area, where any construction requires permission of a newly constituted <strong>National Monuments Authority (NMA)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The amendment also suggested that <strong>heritage by-laws for each monument<\/strong> be created by an expert body given the uniqueness of each monument.<\/li>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/editor_images\/2023\/9\/23\/12\/56\/7\/650e930f715882058e63cddd_OI.PNG\" \/><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>About the AMASR (Amendment) Bill:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Bill seeks to <strong>redefine monuments and rationalise the use of areas<\/strong> around the protected monuments.\n<ul>\n<li>There is a feeling that the Act in its present form <strong>restricts a lot of areas <\/strong>which could be put to good use, specifically in case of developmental and infrastructure-related work.<\/li>\n<li><strong>For example,<\/strong> prohibiting residents from constructing their houses within 100 metres of small and insignificant structures, <strong>causes a lot of inconveniences and revenue loss to them.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>By bringing the Bill, the Government also <strong>aims to effect a change in the current benchmark of a structure<\/strong> having to be at least 100 years old to be listed as a monument.<\/li>\n<li>The relook on the monuments is also <strong>in line with the Government\u2019s aim to rid India of its \u2018colonial past\u2019<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>The Government believes that most of the current monuments are from the British-era despite India having a vast wealth of more ancient structures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Highlights of the PSC on TransportTourism and Culture (359th) Report:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Highlighting problems with the list of centrally protected monuments<\/strong>, the report observed that it includes a large number of \u201c<strong>minor monuments<\/strong>\u201d.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>For example<\/strong>, the list includes 75 graves of colonial-era soldiers or officials of no notable importance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The panel recommended<\/strong> to \u201crationalise and categorise\u201d this list on the basis of the national significance, unique architectural and heritage value.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Till date, <strong>531 monuments<\/strong> [~14.4% of Archaeological Survey of India\u2019s (ASI) total 3,691 centrally protected monuments] <strong>have been encroached<\/strong> and only 9 of these monuments were cleared of encroachment.\n<ul>\n<li>The committee recommends that <strong>ASI should conduct a comprehensive survey of encroachments<\/strong> around all monuments under its jurisdiction.<\/li>\n<li>This will help ASI in <strong>documenting the nature, extent and impact of encroachments<\/strong> on each site to create a database for informed decision-making in this regard.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>On the functioning of ASI<\/strong>, the panel advised to make the organisation more effective by dividing it <strong>into two wings:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Archaeological Survey of India (<strong>ASI<\/strong>) &#8211; can look after the core mandate, i.e., exploration, excavation and conservation aspects, and<\/li>\n<li>The India Heritage Development Corporation (<strong>IHDC<\/strong>) &#8211; can deal with the ASI\u2019s entire revenue.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What are UNESCO world heritage sites?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the UNESCO. These are designated by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, scientific or other forms of significance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is the Monument Mitra Scheme of the Government of India?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Monument Mitra Scheme is a scheme of the Ministry of Culture that aims to develop monuments, heritage and tourist sites across India by inviting corporate entities, public sector companies or individuals to &#8216;adopt&#8217; them (called &#8216;Monument Mitra&#8217;).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/house-panel-wants-monuments-list-pruned-8952129\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>House panel wants monuments list pruned: Some not important<\/u><\/a><br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Standing Committee recommends to categorise centrally protected monuments on the basis of their national significance and to divide ASI into two wings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":37403,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}