Armed with a 100 per cent tax exemption for donors to the newly set up National Culture Fund, the government has embarked on a marketing overdrive to tap corporate cash and involve the private sector in a big way in official, culture-related endeavors. The fund has so far attracted Rs 1.56 crore for specific projects.
This week, a team of senior officials of the Department of Culture travelled to Pune to hardsell the task of conserving the 18th century Shaniwarwada in the city. Among those contacted were Rahul Bajaj, Atul Kirloskar, P P Chhabria of Finlex, H Tanka of Kinetic Honda Motors, Y Nath of Telco and Suresh Sukumaran of Philips India.
The fund alloes a company/individual to choose the site and sponsor activities like its restoration and preservation. The sites may or may not fall under the jurisdiction of the Archaeological Survey of India. The sponsor can also select the agency that would carry our the restoration work; for example, Intach has contributed for restoration activity at the Taj Mahal.
An amount of Rs 1.5 crore has been committed by the Indo-British 50th Anniversary Trust for the restoration of gardens and water channels of the Humayun's Tomb. To this amount, the Oberoi Group of Hotels has added Rs 5 lakh for illuminating the monument. Eighteen such sites selected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) are on offer.
Officials admit the response to the fund launched in March 1997 has not been very enthusiastic, but they attribute this to the partial tax exemption that was hitherto available to the donors. During the reply to the debate on the Union budget 1998-99 in the Lok Sabha, Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha announced a 100 per cent tax exemption to the fund's donors.
This has raised hopes among officials who are planning closer interaction with the corporate sector and organisations like CII and Ficci. There has been interaction with industry captains in Calcutta, Mumbai and Delhi, but they have not proved fruitful. The setting up of a web site on the Internet is one of the steps undertaken to improve awareness of the fund.
"We do not mind if the contributing firm puts up a plaque at the site mentioning its contribution to restoring it. In a larger sense, the fund constitutes a point of overall liberalisation policy in the domain of culture. The fund is managed professionally since non-government representatives and the leading lights of the corporate sector far outnumber the official members in its managing bodies," says a senior official.
