Who is destroying Agra's heritage?

CITY'S URBAN PLANNING GOES HAY-WIRE

 

Agra November 21 (IANS)

 

 

The construction frenzy that has gripped the mandarins in the Agra Development Authority (ADA) is causing a lot of anxiety and fear among environmentalists and land scape designers who have expressed concern at the lack of long-term vision and commitment to conserve the essential heritage character of the Mughal Metropolis with three world heritage sites.

 

"The development efforts are in bits and pieces, ad hoc, sporadic, and lacking in a grand vision. The ADA babus have never heard of heritage ambience or architectural compatibility," rues historian Raj Kumar Sharma Raje.

 

The city seems to live in three different ages from stone age to 21st century. "If Akbar were to rise from his grave in Sikandra and walk down to his Fort, he would have no problem of losing his way, nor would he need to ask anyone for the directions. Really nothing has changed in the city fundamentally," says Wake Up Agra president Shishir Bhagat.

 

Conservationists are particularly angry at the utter lack of sensitivity to the historic architectural compatibility in new structures being built around the Taj Mahal and other monuments that each day draw thousands from all over the world. "The tourists who spend so much money and time come to see our rich architectural heritage and not the ghettos or the box type concrete jungles that are mushrooming everywhere so thoughtlessly," said president of the Braj Mandal Heritage Conservation Society, Surendra Sharma. "Its not just Agra but the entire Braj area, Mathura, Vrindavan, Goverdhan where you see concrete jungles replacing old grand heritage structures. The ghats on the river Yamuna have disappeared, even the green mangroves of Sri Krishna have vanished," Sharma added.

 

Architectural monstrosities, haphazard urban planning, disorganised traffic movement along the main roads due to increasing number of encroachments, lack of pattern and thinking are self-evident, says conservationist Rajiv Saxena. "In the name of beautification, obstructions are being installed at road crossings. The MG Road widening plan into six lanes is in the pipeline and the ADA is senselessly going ahead with the fly-overs and overbridge construction in many areas without ensuring that the designs gel with the ambience of the area. The city badly needs an Urban Arts Panel to guide and advise official town planners so that the essential character of the city is not lost," Saxena  adds.

 

The bureaucrats keep coming up with fancy projects every now and then without thought to "visual pollution." Had it not been for some activists, a former mayor and a commissioner of Agra then would have gone ahead with promoting a "London Ferris Wheel" project near the Taj Mahal. Luckily the project was stalled in time. "Its the same mentality that inspired the BSP supremo Mayawati to launch the controversial Taj Heritage Corridor in 2003, between the two world heritage monuments Taj and the Fort."

 

 

Demands have also been made to constitute an urban arts panel in the city which should oversee and suggest suitable modifications in the urban plans. But the mindless and often haphazard urban constructions in the city are set to imbalance the heritage character of the Mughal metropolis, says Anand Rai, a key functionary of the India Rising group in Agra.

 

Abhinaya Prasad, director of the Skill Assessment and Certification Centre says "all arts and architecture loving people of Agra will have to raise their voice in a crescendo to force official agencies to stop visual pollution in the city of the Taj Mahal and numerous heritage structures."

 

In recent years, many projects undertaken by the ADA or cleared by it  have come under fire for not being in tune with the character of the city. "Obviously the bureaucrats have no idea about the high powered Dr S Vardarajan committee report which outlined 20 odd recommendations for the development of the city, including restrictions on high rise buildings within ten kilometres of the Taj Mahal, but the ADA has promoted its own ADA Heights not too far away from the heritage building," says Hari Dutt Sharma, an educationist. 

 

A few years ago, the ADA spent crores of Rupees on beautifying the approach road to the Taj Mahal from Shilp gram parking slot. Now the UP state government has launched a new Taj project costing Rs 140 crores to beautify the whole area and basties around the Taj Mahal. "So what happens to the work done earlier like installing fancy street lights in Mughal style? Where have they vanished?" asks hotelier Sandeep Kumar.

 

 

Elsewhere too in the city, urban planning or the lack of it is visible in myriad forms. People have renamed ADA as Agra Destruction Agency. "The reason why the mandarins in the ADA are able to have their way is because the 85 odd elected corporators of the Muncipal Corporation do not have a direct say in the running of the development body which lacks accountability and transparency. It is necessary to bring it under the control of the Muncipal Corporation where those elected can discuss the urban plans. Right now the babus are too arrogant and feel that the corporators are a set of duffers. This is an insult to democratic institutions," comments social activist Shravan Kumar Singh.

 

The city has multiple authorities or interest groups each at variance with the other. The district administration, the city corporation, the ADA, the Taj Mission Board, the Taj Trapezium Zone Authority, the Zila Parishad, the Archeological Survey of India, the state pollution control board, the builders and colonisers' lobbies, the tourism industry and so on are all engaged in developing Agra and "see what they have reduced this city to," adds a frustrated activist Sudershan Dua.