The iconic monument Red Fort has been adopted by the Dalmia group for maintenance under the "Adopt a Heritage Scheme". The contract was signed between the Dalmia group and the Ministry of Tourism at a cost of Rs. 25 crore for a period of 5 years. They won the contract beating IndiGo Airline and GMR Group.
"Adopt a Heritage Scheme" was launched on 27th September, 2017 (World Tourism Day) by the President of India. The "Adopt a Heritage Scheme" invites private and public sector companies and corporate individuals to take responsibility for making heritage and tourism more sustainable through conservation and development.
The undertaking of the Red Fort by the Dalmia Group is a part of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). The notification relating to CSR clearly states "Protection of National Heritage, art and culture including restoration of buildings and sites of historical importance and works of art".
The Press Release clearly states that the project,"enables Dalmia Bharat to construct, landscape, illuminate and maintain activities related to provision and development of tourist amenities. This includes various basic and advanced amenities such as public convinences, clean drinking water, cleanliness of the monument, accessibility for all, signage, cloakroom facilities, illumination and night viewing, survillance system, tourist facilities cum interpretation centre among others".
While the report clearly laid out the contract details, the headlines were extremely misleading. People without going through the detail started giving their view by reading just some misleading and mischievous headlines. The Dalmia group will be charging people and the entry point and will also have their visibility to improve their brand image, but the entire process will not generate revenue for the Dalmia Group.
This is actually Phase 2 of the "Adopt a Heritage Scheme". in Phase 1, places in Hampi, Leh, Qutub Minar, Ajanta Caves, Purana Qila, Safdarganj Tomb, Gangotri Temple, etc have been adopted by Corporates as a part of their CSR initiative. But no outrage was seen during that time because of lack awareness among people. Whereas the adoption of Red Fort by the Dalmia Group is widely criticised because of misleading headlines and lack of proper information. People, nowadays, believe anything they hear and see in social media without going through the official statements.
The "Adopt a Heritage Scheme" is a very nice initiative by the Government as it will minimise the Government's expenditure for the upkeep of the monument as well as it generated revenue for the Government.
The Dalmia Group has already started planning on improving the amenities in Red Fort and will start the work from 23rd May as it will have to handover the monument temporarily to the Security in July for preparing the monument for Independence Day.
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