The Union Cabinet decision to amend the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 2010, to allow centrally-funded projects to be set up in the prohibited area of the nationally-protected monuments is likely to adversely impact historical structures of national importance.

Pointing this out, the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT), a politico-cultural group formed in the memory of young theatre artiste Safdar Hashmi, who was brutally murdered for performing a street play in Jhandapur, UP, in 1989, has said the amendment allowing new construction in the immediate vicinity of protected properties of national importance would make monuments “most susceptible to heavy vibrations, chemical effects or mechanical stresses.”

The “prohibited areas”, under the current law, is the designated area up to hundred metres from the delineated boundary. Those who have signed the statement include members of the National Monuments Authority (NMA) M Saleem Beg, Meera Das, Bharat Bhushan, Shalini Mahajan, and Pukhraj Maroo, several historians including Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib, well-known theatre and cinema personality MK Raina, art historian Geeta Kapur, well-known artist Vivan Sundaram, and senior economist Prabhat Patnaik.