Red Fort adoption in trouble as bureaucratic battles stall work

ASI starts work even as Dalmia Bharat's comprehensive work plan for the monument awaits approval

More than two months after a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was inked for the adoption of Delhi’s iconic Red Fort by the Dalmia Bharat group, things seem to have reached a tense standoff between the corporate group and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). 

It is reliably learnt that no work as specified under the MoU has yet begun on and around the Red Fort’s precincts. The ASI, which functions under India’s Ministry of Culture is pressing forward with work on the monument on its own in the run-up to Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s last Independence Day speech of his