Various Heritage sites are to be adopted by a Monument Mitras under Adopt a Heritage scheme.
What is Adopt a Heritage scheme?
It is an initiative of the Ministry of Tourism, in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India.
Under the scheme government invites entities, including public sector companies, private sector firms as well as individuals, to develop selected monuments and heritage and tourist sites across India.
Development of these tourist sites calls for providing and maintaining basic amenities, including drinking water, ease of access for the differently abled and senior citizens, standardised signage, cleanliness, public conveniences, etc.
How the scheme works?
The sites/monument for this scheme will be selected on the basis of tourist footfall and visibility and can be adopted by private and public sector companies and individuals known as Monument Mitras for an initial period of five years.
The Monument Mitras are selected by the ‘oversight and vision committee,’ co-chaired by the Tourism Secretary and the Culture Secretary.
There is no financial bid involved and the corporate sector is expected to use corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the upkeep of the site.
The Monument Mitras, in turn, will get limited visibility on the site premises and on the Incredible India website.
The oversight committee also has the power to terminate a memorandum of understanding in case of non-compliance or non-performance.
What is the status of this scheme?
The government looks forward that the scheme would help to increase tourist footfall and improve the infrastructure around the monument.
So far, 31 agencies or Monument Mitras have been approved to adopt 95 monuments/tourist sites.
MoUs has been signed for adopting Mt. Stok Kangri (in Ladakh), Trail to Gaumukh, (in Uttarakhand), Red Fort (in Delhi) and the Gandikota Fort (in Andhra Pradesh).
This is a pretty small list, as the ASI protects 3,686 ancient monuments and archaeological sites, including 36 world heritage sites.
Union government further intends to expand the ‘Adopt a Heritage’ scheme.
