HRIDAY in Amravathi

Relevance: Mains: G.S paper III: Indian Economy: Infrastructure

Context

• The Andhra Pradesh government’s effort to build a new capital city, Amaravati, is in national focus, but a government scheme to preserve the heritage of a nearby village with a rich history is floundering.
• Amravathi is part of the central government’s Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), an ambitious scheme that aims to reimagine urban heritage management in 12 cities across 10 states.

HRIDAY

• The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India, launched the National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY) scheme in 2015, with a focus on holistic development of heritage cities.
• The scheme aims to preserve and revitalise soul of the heritage city to reflect the city’s unique character by encouraging aesthetically appealing, accessible, informative & secured environment.
• The Scheme is being implemented in 12 identified Cities namely, Ajmer, Amaravati, Amritsar, Badami, Dwarka, Gaya, Kanchipuram, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi, Velankanni and Warangal.
• The Scheme supports development of core heritage infrastructure projects which shall include revitalization of urban infrastructure for areas around heritage assets identified / approved by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India and State Governments.
• These initiatives shall include development of water supply, sanitation, drainage, waste management, approach roads, footpaths, street lights, tourist conveniences, electricity wiring, landscaping and such citizen services.
• National Advisory Committee (NAC): The National Advisory Committee is the apex advisory body for the HRIDAY Scheme.

Objectives

• Planning, development and implementation of heritage sensitive infrastructure.
• Service delivery and infrastructure provisioning in historic city core areas.
• Preserve and revitalize heritage wherein tourists can connect directly with city’s unique character.
• Develop and document a heritage asset inventory of cities – natural, cultural, living and built heritage as a basis for urban planning, growth and service provision & delivery.
• Implementation and enhancement of basic services delivery with focus on sanitation services like public conveniences, toilets, water taps, street lights with use of latest technologies in improving tourist facilities/amenities.
• Local capacity enhancement for inclusive heritage-based industry.
• Create effective linkages between tourism and cultural facilities and also the conservation of natural and built heritage.
• Urban heritage adaptive rehabilitation and maintenance, including appropriate technologies for historic buildings retrofitting.
• Establish and manage effective public private partnership for adaptive urban rehabilitation.
• Development and promotion of core tangible economic activities to enhance avenues of livelihoods amongst stakeholders. This would also include necessary skill development amongst them including making public spaces accessible and developing cultural spaces.
• Making cities informative with use of modern ICT tools and making cities secure with modern surveillance and security apparatus like CCTV etc.
• Increase accessibility i.e. physical access (roads as well as universal design) and intellectual access (i.e. digital heritage and GIS mapping of historical locations/ tourist maps and routes).

Analysis of implementation of HRIDAY in Amravathi

• The Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (APTDC) was nominated as the implementing agency under the scheme. Subsequently, when HRIDAY was officially inaugurated in Amravathi
• There were 9 projects that were proposed. All nine, however, pertain only to the physical infrastructure of Amravathi.
• Two of these were approved in a modified form: the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the upgradation of approach roads and the creation of a heritage park was tabled.
• A ground survey of HRIDAY sites in Amravathi made these oversights painfully apparent. The DPRs finally approved under HRIDAY were relevant only to the built environment around the Mahachaitya Stupa, the ASI Museum, and the Dhyana Buddha.
• The minister of state for urban development had informed the Lok Sabha in August 2017 that 46% of the work sanctioned for Amravathi under HRIDAY had been completed by July 2017 and that the remaining work was expected to be completed by December 2017
• However, as of January 2018, no work had been initiated on the ground for the creation of a heritage park. Given that the heritage park exists only on paper, there is clearly much more to be done.
• Similarly, the heritage walk from the Dhyana Buddha to the stupa consists of only a partial stone pavement with ornamental street lamps in various states of disrepair.
• The addition of a metallic fence near the stupa has inadvertently turned sections of the walk into a dumping spot for garbage.
• The DPRs were already excessively biased towards Amravathi’s physical infrastructure, and the manner in which they have been executed gives HRIDAY the appearance of being insular and boxed in its vision and implementation, despite the bold mission objectives.

Way Forward

• The nature and quality of the work executed under HRIDAY in Amravathi leaves the scheme open to interrogation.
• Public participation and consultation are crucial to incorporating local stakeholders’ imaginations and aspirations into the larger development trajectory
• With negligible capacity-building and community engagement, it is not really surprising that most HRIDAY cities—including Amravathi—have opted to utilise money for doing just this and nothing more.
• HRIDAY’s failure in achieving its mandate across the nation may well become the subject of considered investigation, but in Amravathi it is downright ironic.
• With HRIDAY’s reduction to quick fixes like so-called heritage walks and parks, all that Amravathi has actually received in the name of heritage-sensitive development are a few streets, pavements, and storm water drains.
• Despite being a comparatively prosperous village with 91.1% census houses being permanent and 72.2% houses availing banking facilities, Amravathi still has no drainage and no sewage treatment system and suffers from a high rate of open defecation.
• The scope and implementation of HRIDAY and similar schemes should be rigorously and publicly examined so that policymakers, conservationists, and scholars can work with each other in evolving more decentralised and participatory models