LAHORE, May 13: The shifting of the archaeology department’s head offices to Lahore seems to have been “delayed” if not stopped as no record or personnel of its planning and development and publication branches has so far reached here.

The shifting of the head offices was to be completed in three phases beginning from May 15 (today) and northern circle director Qasim Ali Qasim said on Monday that no record of the two branches had yet reached the Lahore Fort, where the head offices are to be “temporarily” located.

According to a circular by the culture secretary issued from Islamabad on May 3, the shifting of the record and personnel of the department of archaeology were to be completed by July 15.

The phased plan, according to the circular, is that the department’s exploration and excavation wing and the central library is to be brought to Lahore by June 15 and in the whole central administration is to follow suit in the final phase.

Meanwhile, federal secretary Yusuf Kamal said on Sunday that all antiquities and books in the central library would remain in Karachi. Similarly, there would be no shifting of the National Museum from Karachi.

“The archaeology department’s head offices and its allied wings are being relocated in the Lahore Fort temporarily; they are ultimately to be shifted to Islamabad”, Mr Kamal said.

He said the shifting was being done purely on administrative and financial considerations and in accordance with a federal cabinet decision of 1997. He said the decision to relocate the head offices and other wings was “on the principle under which all the departments were shifted to the new capital from Karachi in 1962”.

Mr Kamal said the shifting of the archaeology department’s head offices was delayed for reasons known to previous governments although there were federal cabinet decisions since 1962. These decisions were repeated by the cabinet in 1973, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1993 and finally in 1997.

He said the head offices did function in Islamabad between 1974 and 1976 but were again transferred to Karachi for reasons not known to the ministry.

One major reason for the shifting, according to the federal secretary, was financial because the offices in Karachi were housed in rented buildings and the government was paying annually a rent amounting to Rs2.8 million. As officers and officials were required to travel to and from Karachi for administrative purposes, the expenditure incurred was much beyond Rs3.5 million a year.

The office expenditure in Lahore, the federal secretary said, was zero as there was ample room available in and around the Lahore Fort to accommodate the head office. “What we will save will be spent on conservation and restoration of monuments”, Mr Kamal added.

As for administrative considerations, Mr Kamal said almost 80 per cent of the country’s cultural property was in the Punjab and the NWFP and the focus was on this region.

Already, he said, maintenance work on monuments had been decentralized and autonomy had been given to all the sub-circles which were functioning at Gilgit, Peshawar, Taxila, Multan and Quetta. This left little work for two major circles in Lahore and Hyderabad. He said the south circle in Hyderabad would continue to function as before.

He also referred to a decision according to which offices now located inside monuments would have to be shifted from there.

Giving details of the decision, northern circle director Qasim Ali Qasim said the circle office would be relocated at the building now accommodating the Punjab government’s Ulema Academy near the Badshahi Masjid which belonged to the archaeology department. He had served the academy with ejectment notices and the period of the last such notice had also expired.

The chief secretary, he said, was being approached to get the building vacated for relocating the offices of the department of archaeology, including its head office and some other allied wings.

Similarly, the office of the caretaker of the Shalamar Gardens, now near the latter’s entrance, would be shifted to the adjacent Naqqar Khana which would have an approach independent of the Shalamar.

PUNJAB:Meanwhile, the Punjab government has supported the shifting of the archaeology department’s head offices to Lahore as the said decision was “in the best national interest”.