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Conservation of monuments hits a roadblock

Shyamhari Chakra

Severe paucity of human and financial resources cripples department

BHUBANESWAR: Though the Government makes tall claims that it is committed to project and promote Orissa as a state of heritage and culture, its ad hoc attitude towards conservation of monuments has put a question mark over its claims.

It’s a monumental neglect. The State has nearly 2,900 monuments scattered over its 30 districts. But the department of State Archaeology that was created more than four decades ago has identified only 222 such sites as protected monuments so far.

On an average, the government spends less than Rs 100 annually on maintenance of a protected monument. There are 77 monument attendants in the State to protect 222 sites! And of these 172 have no attendants.

The historic capital city of Bhubaneswar, known as the city of 1000 temples in ancient times, has already lost two-thirds of it with the ravages of time.

But barring 32 temples, which have come under the purview of the Central and State Archaeology departments, the rest are still unprotected.

The department is handicapped with poor staff strength. Its technical crew comprises an assistant curator, a junior landscaping architect, a chemical assistant and an archaeological assistant engineer besides two conservation assistants.

While there is paucity of human and financial resources, there is also lack of vision in the department to involve the communities in the conservation process.

"We are extremely worried over the poor state of affairs with the precious ancient monuments of the state and we have recommended for adequate provision of funds for conservation and protection of the monuments," said Legislative Assembly Standing Committee chairperson Bikram Arookh.

Culture Secretary Gopinath Mohanty said: "We have received the recent report of the State Archaeology about their constraints.

It’s a fact and accordingly we have moved the finance department to hike the budgetary allocations.

The Culture Minister has already reviewed the situation."

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