KARACHI, Sept 27: The Sindh government has established an endowment fund of Rs1 billion for the preservation of the physical heritage of Sindh, it was reliably learnt here on Saturday.

Highly placed sources said the government had also constituted a 14-member management board to manage the fund and evaluate, pass and monitor the heritage conservation projects.

The board will be headed by Jahangir Siddiqui, a stock broker. Hameed Akhund, Hameed Haroon, Shoukat Tareen, Nilofar Shaikh, Sassui Palijo, Asad Umer, Yasmeen Lari, Nafisa Shah, Mazhar Siddiqui, Ibrahim Shah and secretaries of finance, culture and antiquities will be its members. The secretary of the antiquities department will also act as the board’s secretary.

Only the income generated from the endowment fund would be spent to preserve the heritage, the sources said, adding that philanthropists could also contribute to the fund.

They said the fund would be used to attract and retain the very best conservators; develop and test conservation strategies, archaeological methods and theories; conduct field research in collaboration with the scholars, contribute to the field of preservation through scholarly investigation of how to learn about past practices and what kinds of material were used and to involve public in the work by ensuring that their perspectives were reflected in the programmes.

They said that endowed chairs would be established with a principal amount ranging between $1 million and $3 million. These endowments would support the salary and work of archaeologists and conservators working with or in collaboration with the department.

The advisory committee of the endowment would establish an endowment and investment policy with guidelines for establishing, investing, managing the expenditures and returns from the stewarding endowments that support the department’s current operations, they added.

The sources said that the advisory committee would adhere to a policy of spending only a small fixed percentage of the endowment fund’s liquid assets annually. The remaining assets would be reinvested and the principal amount would never be touched, thus making the endowment funds as long-term savings and investment accounts, providing regenerating resources, which could then be directed to the funding priorities of the department to conserve the physical heritage and support the related research.

They said the 14-member board would focus on steadily raising the endowment fund in stages by encouraging donors to make bequests and give planned gifts. The board would also ensure that the earnings generated from the endowment supported the conservation plans and the principal amount grew to support the Sindh’s physical heritage.

Responding to Dawn queries, Sindh Antiquities Secretary Kaleem Lashari said that the endowment fund of Rs1 billion had been established. The fund would be provided in four annual instalments of Rs250 million each, he said, adding that the first instalment had been provided to the department. He said the heritage conservation projects used to get a lower priority and receive relatively lesser funds earlier, but with the establishment of this endowment fund such projects would not suffer in future. With the assured funding, concrete steps could be taken to conserve the physical heritage.

The antiquities department would prepare and submit conservation projects in the fields of investigation, documentation, research, physical conservation, post-excavation conservation of sites, museum / archive-based research related to physical heritage and trainings to the management board. Only the well researched projects will be evaluated by the board for the necessary funding.