ASI first proposed increasing the entrance fee to 16 World Heritage monuments and 72 other monuments last year. The entrance fee is to be raised from Rs 5 to Rs 10 for Indian nationals for World Heritage monuments and from Rs 2 to Rs 5 for other sites. In addition, the proposal envisages a separate fee of Rs 350 being levied on foreigners for World Heritage sites and Rs 175 for others.

ASI currently earns about Rs 6 crore a year from levying tickets to its monuments and expects the sum to double after the new rates. But given the shortage of staff, ASI has asked for the creation of 115 additional posts of Class III officers and an equal number of Class IV officers. This, it feels, will prevent pilferage and mismanagement.

ASI officials sayticket sales from hot tourist spots such as Taj Mahal in Agra, Qutab Minar and Red Fort in Delhi and Ajanta-Ellora caves are grossly under-represented. While Taj Mahal receives about 6,000 visitors every day, record books account for only half.

The Finance Ministry has asked that ASI reconsider its staff demand in view of the additional expense it involves, especially at a time of resource crunch. But ASI's argument is that expenditure on the additional staff cannot exceed Rs 1 crore a year, which still leaves a healthy additional sum of Rs 5 crore for the national kitty.

ASI is also trying to scale down its staff requests wherever possible. For instance, in Jammu and Kashmir, which has two national monuments, Ram Nagar and Kribchi, tourist traffic is not large enough to justify additional staff, so they have decided to make do with existing officers. ASI will finally despatch its clarifications in a day, in what it hopes is the final round, and expects to see the revamped fee structure in place by theNew Year.

Clearly, the fee structure of places of historic and cultural interest in the country needs to be reappraised. Recently, the Ministry of Human Resource Development hiked the entrance fee to the National Museum in New Delhi, which has an average of 200 visitors a day, to Rs 5. Guess what it was till July? Fifty paise, the coins for which are sadly in abeyance.