Preparation of Heritage Bye-Laws
National Monuments Authority (NMA) has so far not noticed any bye-laws for any protected monuments and protected area declared as of national importance. Preparation of heritage bye-laws for all the 3686 protected monuments and protected areas is under process. Since a number of agencies are involved in the process of preparing the bye-laws till their notification, namely Archaeological Survey of India, Survey of India, National Monuments Authority, Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Law and the volume of work is very large, no fixed time limit can be indicated for notifying the heritage bye-laws in respect of all the protected monuments/sites.
Lack of capacity with the specialised agencies to accomplish this mammoth task, which also includes survey and marking of the protected, prohibited and regulated areas apart from various other factors, is one of the primary reasons for the delay.
Ideally, in the absence of heritage byelaws, no permission for construction activities should have been granted in protected, prohibited and regulated areas in which case there would have been no danger to the preservation of Indian cultural Heritage.
This information was given by Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (Independent Charge) and Minister of State for Civil Aviation Dr. Mahesh Sharma in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.
Source : Ministry of Culture , Govt of India on 30-November, 2015