To Destroy A Wonder Of The World

[Guest guest]

STATE OF AFFAIRS IN INDIA'S TOURIST CAPITAL

 

To Destroy A Wonder Of The World

 

Rohit Bansal

 

Raj and Sonia have taken the easy route of immortalising their love

on the yellowing marble of the Taj. But why blame them. Tens of love-

struck couples do the same every day. Because the 350-strong

Archeological Survey of India (ASI) staff has other things to do

than snooping around love birds and the 120-odd Central Industrial

Security Force (CISF) contingent on duty can't stop cursing their

punishment posting. It doesn't help that ASI has to reimburse the

CISF for their salaries—the cost of a constable is around Rs 12,000

per month—or part with 50 per cent of the ticketing booty with the

local Agra Development Authority (ADA). It has its own bureaucracy

to pay up. Not surprising therefore that the flower beds of the

Mughal Garden are empty, even though one of the four departments is

meant exclusively for gardens. "These are some of the reasons I

insisted that culture should be part of tourism," says Union tourism

and culture minister Jagmohan. He won't comment though on why civil

aviation must continue to be an independent fiefdom, often with very

conflicting priorities.

For all the hype that Agra attracted thanks to Pervez Musharraf's

summit with the Indian Prime Minister last year, the tourism capital

of India is not for the weak-hearted. The morning's train ride

exposes you to thousands of people going about their morning

ablutions, a fact of life that a rattled minister of state for

tourism and culture Vinod Khanna seems to have discovered only last

weekend. Then touts and beggars descend no sooner the train halts.

The road to the hotel is bad news for the tourist's spine. In

contrast, pigs and cows look okay chomping away the mounds of

garbage. The scene is just as bad from Agra's Kheria air force

airport. The facilities are bare. Corporate interest can be gauged

from the fact that there is just one signage (about 4ftX3ft) on the

walls. That too Servo of Indian Oil, because they control the fuel

supply.

 

"We must do something about all this," he whispers with passion. The

buzz within babudom though is that no major file is routed through

Mr Khanna anyway.

 

"It's a problem of competing demands," counters Mr Jagmohan when

confronted with the World Travel and Tourism Council's suggestion

that his government's spends on tourism should go up from 0.9 per

cent of the central budget to 5 per cent. The tourism minister

remembers how as communications minister he had argued for funds

because that, indeed, was the future. As lieutenant governor of

Delhi, he would argue that Delhi needs more money because it is the

Capital of India after all. Then there is the problem of convincing

a state government like Mayawati's. Mr Jagmohan ordered Agra's

district administration to open their eyes (and noses!) to the

mountains of rubbish. After all, his ASI gives ADA Rs 375 for each

foreign tourism who visits the Taj. But here on, it is their call.

They can spend the money anywhere they want and tourism being a

state subject it is Ms Mayawati who calls the shots. "In our

monuments it isn't as much as issue of funds, but governance," says

the tourism minister. He has just done that in the caves of Ajanta

and Ellora. In Agra he shows photographs of just how food stalls and

tailors have eaten into the once mighty Buland Darwaza that Mughal

emperor Akbar built to commemorate his victory in Gujarat. "I take

these pictures everywhere because people may not remember this sorry

state of affairs after the clean up job is over!" said Mr Jagmohan.

His plans to install lights around the Taj—hundreds of wires of the

abandoned lighting system still exist—may still need a nod from the

Supreme Court.

 

Is there hope for Shah Jehan's beloved monument of love? Two minor

successes are allocations by the Taj Group (and Tata Sons) of Rs 1

crore since June last year on the eastern side of the monument and

the green cover that the UP forest department has achieved against

land grabbers on the Yamuna overlooking the Taj. But the Taj

experience remains low-end. If you are Indian, all you have for

memory is two strips of paper almost similar to a bus ticket in

Delhi's DTC. If you are a foreigner you spend all of Rs 750 for some

cheap paper with a few blurred pictures of neighbouring monuments.

For memorabilia, there isn't even a T-shirt that will last two

washes, complains a media editor. Inside, the repair scaffoldings

have rusted so much that the marble has turned brown. The CISF is

pre-occupied with access control: they have no answer or anti-

aircraft guns to bring down incoming flying objects. The bashed up

shoe deposit boxes lie in the open. The tattered deposit receipt

appears to have been cut out of a Nike shoe box. It says `just do

it'.

 

(This reporter was a delegate at a recent World Travel and Tourism

Council India Initiative retreat at Agra).