August 8, 2018 TnH Global 1

Kaziranga National Park in Assam not covered under the ‘Adopt a Heritage’ scheme: Tourism Minister

No sites have been adopted by any private institute in Assam under the ‘Adopt a Heritage’ scheme. Any monument/heritage site/natural site for whose inclusion, the concerned asset owner (ASI, State Government etc) agrees can be considered under the Adopt a Heritage Scheme. Kaziranga National Park is not covered under the scheme yet. The guidelines are available at www.adoptaheritage.in. Salient feature of project guidelines is as below:

Adopt a Heritage – Salient Feature of Project Guidelines – ‘Adopt a Heritage’ project focusses on providing basic public conveniences and amenities which include cleanliness, drinking water, ease of access for differently abled and senior citizens, standardized signage, illumination and advanced amenities such as surveillance system, night viewing facilities, tourism facilitation centre etc. It aims to involve public sector companies, private sector companies and corporate citizens/individuals to take up the responsibility for making our heritage and tourism more sustainable through development, operation and maintenance of world-class tourist infrastructure and amenities at ASI/State heritage sites and other important tourist sites in India.

Primary objectives of the project include:

To develop basic and advanced tourism infrastructure in and around heritage monuments and any other tourist sites in collaboration with the public/private sector.
To promote cultural and heritage value of the country to generate livelihoods of local communities of respective heritage site/monument/tourist site.
To develop sustainable tourism infrastructure and ensuring proper Operations and Maintenance therein and thus increase the attractiveness of the tourist destinations.

Adopting a monument/heritage/tourist site include the following main approaches:

Submission of Expression of Interest (EoI): Agencies/organizations/individuals interested in adopting a monument/heritage/tourist site are required to submit an Expression of Interest (EoI) upon which the EoI is examined for compliance to the project guidelines and a Letter of Intent (LoI) is awarded to the potential Monument Mitra.

Need-Gap Analysis & Vision Bidding: Monument Mitras are required to carry out a need gap analysis for all the selected monuments in collaboration with the asset owners and submit Vision Bids. The Vision Bids would reflect the needs of every individual monument/heritage/tourist site. The Vision Bids are evaluated by the Oversight & Vision Committee (O&VC) and given in-principle approval on fulfillment of the extant project guidelines.

Signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU): A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is signed following which, a Detailed Project Report (DPR) is required to be submitted by the successful Monument Mitra to the asset owner. The asset owner in turn does a detailed examination of the DPR as per the extant guidelines prior to the execution of the proposed activities.