ASI traces 47 missing monuments

Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has located and identified 47 monuments, which were reported untraceable in the recent CAG audit report, the Lok Sabha was informed today.
As many as 47 of the 92 monuments that were declared untraceable by the CAG in its reports have been found and traced, Culture Minister Chandresh Kumari Katoch told the Lok Sabha in a written reply to a query.
Replying to another question, the minister said Mysore- based Central Institute of Indian Language (CIIL) has implemented a scheme for preservation and protection of languages spoken by less than 10,000 people.
It is being done through documentation of their linguistic features, which include various activities like preparation of grammars, dictionaries, encyclopedias, collection of folklores, formulating scripts and typography codes, she said.

CIIL has already documented over 100 languages belonging to various sub-branches including oral traditions of hill communities like Khasi (Meghalaya), Bodo (Assam), Aka and Khampti (Arunachal Pradesh), Liangmai, Maring and Tangkhul (Manipur), Ao, Konyak, Lotha, Phom, Sangtam (Nagaland), Kuvi (Odisha), Lepcha (Sikkim) and Jenu Kurumba (Karnataka).
"The Institute is also working on the documentation of other languages by collecting linguistic and ethno-linguistic data and preserving them in audio, video and print formats," Katoch said.
Responding to a separate question, she said 226 forts in the country were being protected by ASI and it has spent Rs 15,649.50 lakh in 2010-11, Rs 13389.88 lakh in 2011-12 and Rs 14,861.02 lakh in 2012-13 for conservation of monuments.

There are 75,307 unprotected archaeological monuments and sites in India, Katoch said.