Indian Express 16.02.2010
Bus corridor: Municipal corporation awaits ASI nod
Tanvir A Siddiqui Tags : transport, corporation Posted: Tuesday , Feb 16, 2010 at 0537 hrs
Ahmedabad: Come March 6 and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation will open tenders for the construction of a four-km long elevated corridor between the Dariapur Gate and the New Cloth Market, to be used as an exclusive passage for the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS).
The estimated cost of the project is Rs 162 crore and the AMC hopes to complete it in 34 months.
The corridor will pass through an area which has five protected monuments — namely, the Shaking Minarets, the Minarets near the old railway station, Kalupur Gate, Prem Darwaza and the Dariapur Gate. Though the JNNRUM directorate has sanctioned funding for this corridor, the AMC is still to receive permission from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) for the construction of the corridor.
Anticipating nod from the ASI, the civic body has decided to go ahead with the project. No one in the AMC wants to say a word about the ASI notice of December 15, which had a deadline of six weeksIn fact, the ASI has slapped AMC a notice about the legality of all constructions carried out since 2006 when the ASI Directorate General had formed an expert advisory committee (EAC) to give advice on applications seeking special permissions for construction of around 600 ancient monuments in the country. The Delhi High Court had invalidated the Committee as outside the scope of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958 saying there was no provision in the Act for such a Committee
This left the ASI with no option but to disband the Committee and issue notices to all concerned to settle the issue. Now the Law Ministry will have to come up with legislative intervention enabling the ASI to revive the Expert Advisory Committee.
A marathon meeting was held in New Delhi on Monday between the ASI directorate and Law Minister Veerappa Moily on the need to bring a fresh Bill on the subject.
Municipal Commissioner I P Gautam said he met top ASI officials in New Delhi a week ago. “We hope that since the ASI and the Law Ministry are busy finding a way out by way of legal solution, we should be able to get the permission to our pending application in around three months,” he said.
