States approach Centre to expedite projects around heritages sites

The governments of three states, namely Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar have asked the Centre to speed up the approval of new and old projects that have been dormant in terms of construction due to their proximity to heritage sites and structures.Reportedly, the states approached the Cultural Ministry for the same and it is expected that around 180 private projects that have been affected will be assessed in the next few days.Recently, the ministry had launched an online application processing system called NOC to aid in granting of approval by the National Monument Authority, for building projects in prohibited areas around monuments in six states – Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Jharkhand and Telangana. NMA, under the Cultural Ministry, is now seeking to work on digitisation of local bodies in the three states. As per the new system initiated by NMA, the time for online approval for projects around Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) protected monuments now falls to under 30 days as compared to the previous duration of four months. It is now taking steps to integrate this portal with the respective states to expedite all requests. As per ASI regulations, an area up to 100 metres from protected monuments is treated as prohibited for construction.