ASI Act amendment aimed at preserving monuments

An amendment to The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958, which has been in the works for more than a year, could finally be a reality, as the Centre could bring in legislation in this Budget session. Apart from increasing the current areas of prohibition around centrally protected to more than 100 metres, other changes in the act could include a liberalised system for permissions to build amenities.

Speaking at a function on developing the tourism sector on “mission mode”, union minister for tourism and culture G Kishan Reddy said that an amendment to the AMASR Act will be brought in this session.

“There are more than 3,600 centrally-protected monuments, and the amended legislation will take into account the need to preserve them,” Reddy said.

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Officials of the ministry said that several monuments need permission to construct tourism-related amenities, and amendments to the Act will address these concerns. The Centre is looking at generating more revenue from the monuments, and officials said that they have written to state governments to this end.

Last year, in June, the Advisory Board of the Archaeological Survey of India, in its first meeting since 2014, said that the process to amend the 1958 Act was initiated and consequently, a sub-committee was formed to look at the details.

At the event, Reddy said that under India’s G20 Presidency, more than 200 meetings are going to be held across 56 locations. “This will give unprecedented opportunities to these destinations to come on the tourism world map, and help us reach our vision of a $1 trillion tourism economy by 2047 with 100 million international visitors,” Reddy said.

He said that the Centre is coming up with national strategies and roadmaps for the development of rural tourism and homestays, medical and wellness tourism, adventure tourism, eco tourism, MICE, and, sustainable tourism. Apart from that, the National Digital Tourism Mission to promote digitisation of the tourism sector, as well as the Draft National Tourism Policy, are in the pipeline, too.