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This story is from July 7, 2020

Trickle of visitors as monuments reopen after more than 100 days

Even as popular monuments like the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri remained off limits after the local administration in Agra decided against opening them to public, Delhi’s Qutub Minar and Humayun’s Tomb and Rajasthan’s ancient sites at Bhangarh and the Kumbhalgarh fort were among those that saw some subdued interest. The number of visitors on Monday, however, remained low.
Trickle of visitors as monuments reopen after more than 100 days
NEW DELHI: Tourist footfalls at Archaeological Survey of India’s heritage sites got off to a slow start on Monday as monuments reopened to public after more than 100 days.
Even as popular monuments like the Taj Mahal and Fatehpur Sikri remained off limits after the local administration in Agra decided against opening them to public, Delhi’s Qutub Minar and Humayun’s Tomb and Rajasthan’s ancient sites at Bhangarh and the Kumbhalgarh fort were among those that saw some subdued interest.
The number of visitors on Monday, however, were only a small fraction of what these ticketed monuments usually see, typically.
When TOI went through Archaeological Survey of India’s ticket sales data for ticketed heritage monuments across the country, Qutub Minar and Humayun’s Tomb, two of the three Unesco World Heritage sites in Delhi, saw subdued interest with just under 100 tickets being sold online through the day, significantly lower than the limit of 3,000 visitors per day that the culture ministry had set. Humayun’s Tomb, which typically receives between 6,000 to 10,000 visitors, daily, saw less than 60 tickets sold.
Other popular sites fared even worse. In Uttar Pradesh, while Agra’s monuments remained shut, there were no takers for the Buddhist sites in Sarnath. Same was the story at Sun Temple in Konark, the Elephanta Caves in Maharashtra, the group of monuments in Mamallapuram, and the Purana Quila in Delhi on re-opening day.
With coronavirus confining people to their homes, the overall enthusiasm for a day’s outing to heritage monuments remained below par across the country. This, compounded by international arrivals at a standstill, saw popular sites like the Residency Building in Lucknow receive just two visitors on Monday afternoon, the Cooch Behar Palace under ASI’s Kolkata circle getting 10 tourists and the group of monuments in Hampi under 20.
In the few places that saw tourist arrivals, wearing masks, maintaining physical distancing, and a complete ban of food and beverages, except bottled water, was followed strictly. The ministry had also mandated that visitors must share their phone numbers with ASI officials at the time of entering monuments to facilitate contact tracing. Government officials, however, said they had left the implementation of the diktat to the local administration and authorities.
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