LARKANA, April 2: It is difficult to look after hundreds of archaeological sites with the meager budget allocated to the department of archaeology in the country.
Saleemul Haq, the director-general (DG) of Archaeology and Museum, said this while talking to newsmen at Mohenjodaro on Wednesday after attending the closing ceremony of the practical portion of the sub-regional training course held jointly by the department of archaeology and UNESCO.
Annually the department gets only Rs3,750,000, the DG said, to look after 391 protected sites in the country, and added just 4 per cent of the whole budget was being spent on the maintenance of sites.
“We are in touch with the government to seek an amount of Rs12,500,000 being earned as the revenue of the department so as to coup up the situation to some extent,” he said, and added efforts were underway to get a bulky amount sanctioned permanently in the Annual Development Programme.
He said, “Just imagine that for the maintenance of 126 protected monuments in Sindh province, the department has only Rs10 lacs to be spent annually and only Rs15,000 goes to the Mohenjodaro site for the maintenance of its gardens alone.”
The DG disclosed that certain influential people had encroached upon the Mohenjodaro site land, and added that so far the encroachers had illegally occupied five acres of the land of Mohenjodaro (archaeological site).
The curator of Mohenjodaro, Irshad Ahmed Ridd, confirmed the fact saying that despite repeated approaches they were not vacating it.
The DG said that this was happening as the department had a shortage of staff.
He said that he feared that if the situation persisted unchecked more areas of the archaeological sites would be encroached upon.
When asked about the fate of the amount of $600,000 of the abandoned Authority for the Preservation of Mohenjodaro, he said the amount was purely meant to maintain this huge world heritage. But it was lying in a bank since the abolition of Authority for the Preservation of Mohenjodaro in 1997 and the federal ministry of culture were operating the account.
Appreciating UNESCO’s cooperation, he said that even its (i.e. UNESCO’s) managers were asking for the mechanism of spending that amount. He pointed towards negotiations with the department concerned to secure the amount as early as possible.
Replying to another question regarding the burglary of 41 artefacts from Mohenjodaro, he said even Interpol had been informed about it.
He was sure that no government museums in the world would purchase the stolen seals but he did not rule out the possibility of its purchase by private parties.