The Hindu : New Delhi News : A new lease of life for culture fund

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 12, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

A new lease of life for culture fund

Mandira Nayar

NEW DELHI: The National Culture Fund (NCF) -- set up to facilitate private and public sector funding into heritage -- is all set to get a new lease of life. With the Union Ministry of Culture planning to extend its scope in a way to let corporates "adopt" non-Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) monuments, it will hopefully spell good news for the vast number of neglected sites dotting the country.

"There have been initial talks with officials of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and they seemed quite positive. This will be a good step forward to protect monuments that don't come under the purview of the ASI, which are considerable in number. The ASI has a better budget now and most of the monuments under its care are not in desperate need of attention," said an official.

Set up with great enthusiasm in 1996, with donations to the fund eligible for tax benefits, it unfortunately has hardly 10 success stories to its credit. Apart from the revitalisation of the Humayun's Tomb gardens with the help of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture which was completed in 2003, the Synagogue Clock Tower in Cochin which been renovated with the help of the World Monument Fund and a few others, NCF has little to boast about in terms of big achievement.

While many corporates had promised to donate money for the cause, progress on most of the projects has been excruciatingly slow. The reason, according to consultants on the projects, was red-tapism and ASI's general attitude. However, officials have a completely different side to the story pinning the blame on "lack" of interest of corporates after they had got initial publicity for adopting the monuments.

But with the NCF allowing corporates to adopt non-ASI monuments, the situation might improve, say experts. It will not only ensure that significant monuments would be restored to their original glory, but will also simplify the process for corporates.

In an attempt to smoothen things out at their end, ASI has also decided to take a more "relaxed" view of the issue.

"We are now willing to let corporates get the work done on the monuments too. Earlier, they could only donate the money and the work would be executed by ASI; now they can select any agency that has been approved by ASI to get the work done. ASI will still have to ensure that all the work being done on the monument has been sanctioned through us," said a senior official.

Apart from concentrating on only built heritage, NCF will also look to funding other creative arts. And in a first of its kind, it will partly fund a book on modern contemporary art.

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