LAHORE, Dec 28: Certain hiccups in the implementation of the decision to hand over the federally-administered monuments to provinces have delayed the process for an indefinite period.

The federal culture ministry had in August last year decided to transfer 390 monuments under its administrative control to the provinces.

Official sources told Dawn on Thursday that the decision could not be implemented as there had been no consensus among the federal culture ministry, finance, and planning & development departments over the issue.

They said the P&D department was not willing to transfer funds to the provinces and the finance department had objected that the monuments were not on the concurrent list.

The culture ministry had about a month ago given a go-head to the Punjab archaeology department for taking care of Rohtas Fort, Shahdara (Lahore) monuments and Taxila monuments and archaeological sites, but did not issue a notification.

Sensing the development, the federal archaeology department had decided to appoint project directors of these monuments and sites and advertised in the press.

According to the decision taken in the August meeting presided over by Federal Culture Minister G G Jamal, the federal staff working at these monuments and their budget were also to be transferred to the provinces. The federal government was to provide budget to Balochistan for three years, and Sindh and the NWFP for a year each so that they (provinces) could strengthen themselves for proper upkeep of the monuments after the implementation of the decision.

Certain elements in the culture ministry and the federal archaeology department were reportedly against the transfer of the federally-administered monuments to the provinces. They feared that the provinces could not properly look after the monuments because they lacked capacity. Besides, the provincial archaeology departments’ ability to interact with the international donor agencies had often been questioned by some quarters.

Of the 390 federally-controlled monuments, 147 are in Punjab, 88 in the NWFP, 127 in Sindh and 28 in Balochistan. Two historical monuments — Lahore Fort and Shalamar Gardens — have already been transferred to Punjab.

The Punjab archaeology department has 244 monuments, Sindh has a few and the NWFP and Balochistan have no monuments under their administrative control.

The federal archaeology department has more than 1,100 employees whereas the staff of all the provincial archaeology departments is not more than 250.