Who Does The Taj Belong To?

What if the Taj loses its world heritage tag? With the supreme court posing the question, the crucial job of harmonising the often conflicting goals and expectations of multiple stakeholders falls on the government. And the future of the Taj depends on it

- Damayanti Datta

What is this tamasha going on? Everything has become a joke. You can make a com-edy show out of it.” Supreme Court Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta had just found out that there were still the same number of polluting industries around the Taj Mahal as there were 20 years ago. With this discovery on July 26, at least one point was confirmed: that the management of the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ), the 10,400 sq. km. area demarcated to protect 40 monuments from pollution, including the Taj Mahal, was a “flop”.