Culture Ministry to seek denotification of 'missing' monuments

Culture Ministry is preparing a list of notified monuments under Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) which have gone "missing" and will seek their denotification.
"We are compiling the list of monuments which have come under the roads or bridges or have been submerged in dams. After compiling these, I am going to move the Cabinet to denotify them so that we can focus on monuments which are important and had not been notified," Culture Minister Chandresh Kumar Katoch said.
On the Comptroller and Auditor General's report about 92 "missing" monuments, she said only 22 monuments or sites are not traceable.

She said existence of 64 have been physically verified of which 38 were physically present, 12 were submerged, 14 were encroached upon and verification process for six were on.
The CAG in its report, tabled in Parliament, had said that 92 monuments under ASI had gone missing.
She said the CAG in its draft report had said the number of missing monuments was 82 but the final report it increased to 92.

This, she said, was possibly due to lack of communication between CAG's performance audit team and ASI field staff during the inspection of the monuments or sites.
"The situation arose as ASI is short staffed and at time one member has to take care of two monuments, and when the team visited they might not be present at the site," Katoch said.

She said the monuments or sites encroached upon, submerged or affected due to rapid urbanisation have also been shown as missing or untraceable by the Performance Audit Team, hence number of missing or untraceable have been increased.