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yvsgaawar
July 26th, 2002, 01:46 AM
From a distance, the copper glint of pots catches your eyes nearly as much as the sway of the bright specks of colour they sit atop, when you enter the Deeg palace. Arching gracefully above green waters, the palace,which was built in 1756 by the Jat king , Surajmal, stands out in the true regal spendour, against the filth of Deeg,a busy town of about about 60,000 in Bharatpur district, eastern Rajasthan. As you take in the eight bhavans within the 80-acre monument, the bright speaks become village women, who use the palace as a shortcut to fetch water from eight tube-wells on the other side.


pleads helplessness: "There is very little we can do to protect the monument when we get so little money." For 1998-99 ,the budgetary allocation for for Deeg Palace and Chaurasi Khambha, another protected monument in nearby Kaman was a mere Rs 3.3 lakh. Meanwhile, one of the eight structures, Nand Bhavan, which houses an akhada for nearly 20 years due to cracks in the ceiling. "Expert committees from ASI, Delhi, have come and gone, but nothing has been done," sights Rajan Prasad, a monument attendant at Deeg Palace. In fact, there are piles of moss-covered construction material, brought by the ASI in a fit of enthusiasm, lying outside the Nand Bhavan. A similar story unfolds at the Kesav Bhavan, where an ugly brick wall supports the roof in the absence of proper restoration initiatives, while a painted sign warns visitors not to walk through.Outside the gardens are a mess of overgrown shrubs and unkempt lawns.


"Restoration work has been suspended at Deeg Palace only till the high-level committee from Delhi Palace only till the high level committee from Delhi gives in it’s reports", defends B.R. Meena, Superintending Archaeologist, Jaipur Circle, ASI. Efforts to ticket entry to the palace have apparently been thwarted by village s, who complained to the local MLA the one time ASI tried.
The stated reason: there is Hanuman temple inside the Gopal Bhavan, where Deeg locals come for darshan, and ticketing would go against their religious interests.two the Palace comes in between the town and the main water supply facility in drought-prone Deeg, so woman have no choice but to cut through to fetch water. The result is that some 10,000 tickets sent by the ASI office in Jaipur two years ago, continue to vegetate in Gupta’s office.

"Since it is not ticketed,there is no interest in the palace as a sight as a sight seeing spot. People just come here to while away time ," says Gupta. You can even watch some live village cricket in front of the Hardev Bhavan, with the entry path transformed into a temporary pitch. Inside the Bavan,the stink of the bats fills your nostrils,as you carefully sidestep chips of fallen marble. Most of the monuments architecture is heavily influenced by the early Mughal period.For example, the bhadon pavilion, which flanks one side of the Gopal Bhavan, is is reminiscent of Shah Jahan’s Diwane-e-Aam. And it’s a rude shock to find that public conveniences are also housed within the Kisan Bhavan.

"There are enough monuments in Rajasthan- Chittorgarh, Jaisalmer-that need much more restoration than Deeg palace. We have to look after protected monuments on a priority basis,"says Meena. In the face of ASI’s apathy, the tourism potential of the Deeg-Kaman- Bharatpur area – even Bharatpur, which is famous for the Keoladeo National Park, has a

couple of historical forts that could do with a facelift-continues to walow a neglect.Vishwendra Singh, the present Jat ‘Maharaja’ from Bharatpur, and Surajmal’s descendant, who still owns the palace, is apparently "not interested,and comes only for darshan at the Hanuman temple once in a while", informs Gupta. Singh’s private secretary, A.K. Cheema, however retorts that they have shot off several letters to the ASI, New Delhi, but no avail.