LUCKNOW: A 500-year-old city that is home to one of the most beautiful monuments on earth. Agra and the Taj Mahal are almost synonymous for millions of tourists in India and across the world. Yet, the reality today is that the ethereal beauty of the Taj stands in stark contrast to the squalor that is Agra. The city is in decay and the best efforts ---- including some by international agencies ---- to clean it up have met with failure. And this, officials say, is largely due to the apathy of the state government as well as the city administration.

The best example of such apathy came two years ago. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) had decided to extend Rs. 13 billion (about $27 million) as assistance to improve the environment and beautify the areas in and around the Taj Mahal. A team of ADB officials was in the state to make an on-the-spot assessment, and it cleared the aid without much ado. But the grant lapsed, as the state government could not convince the the bank of its sincerity about executing the project, while the Center simply did not want to be saddled with the task of monitoring the work.

The conflict between the state and the Center, in fact, seems to be at the heart of many of Agra’s problems.

A bulk of the Agra Development Authority’s revenues come from tourists who flock to the city to see the Taj. Yet, it does not spend anything on the upkeep of the monument or its immediate environment. “All the revenue which comes in the form of gate-money, goes to the Central government; so it should be their responsibility to look after the monument,” said a senior Uttar Pradesh Tourism Department official, who did not want to be named.

The Center, on its part, has allocated an annual budget of Rs. 20 million (about $416,600) to the Archeological Survey of India (ASI), which is responsible for the upkeep of the monument. That money, however, is not solely for the Taj’s upkeep ----- it is meant to fund the upkeep of all the 435 historical monuments under the ASI’s purview in Uttar Pradesh!

The ADB project, had it taken off, would have been just what the doctor ordered for Agra. For, according to one official, it did not focus merely on beautifying the Taj, but sought to address problems that were causing damage to the monument. And that included reducing pollution in the city and the region, as well as generally improving civic amenities.

“The ADB project involved greening of not only the immediate vicinity of the 17th century wonder monument, but also far-flung areas stretching right up to Mathura and Vrindaban,” the official said.

“The project proposed gas as an alternative fuel for the coal-run foundries, whose fumes and effluents contained substantial quantities of sulphur that was responsible for causing erosion on the marble structure.”

An interesting part of the project was beautification of the river bank on the other side of the monument that currently lies barren. It was proposed that several gardens be laid there.

Besides providing a unique and unexplored view of the Taj, these gardens would have enlivened the monument’s original 17th century grandeur, that was first highlighted by Eba Koch, an Austrian historian. It was Koch, of the University of Vienna, who, after exhaustive research, disclosed that there were as many as 35 Mughal gardens around the Taj ---- a finding that was later confirmed by the National Park Service of the United States, which too was engaged in a study of the Taj Mahal.

Some efforts have been made to make use of the bank across from the Taj. Desh Deepak Verma, district magistrate of Agra in 1994-95, came up with the idea of having top artists perform in a makeshift amphitheatre, with the monument providing the backdrop. Film actress Hema Malini’s dance performance was the first in the series. This was followed by the memorable concert by Yaani in 1996, when the composer specially flew in here with his entire troupe. But such efforts soon petered off.

Apart from international agencies, an increasingly worried Supreme Court has, time and again, sought to improve the civic amenities in the city ----- but without much success.

In November 1999, the Supreme Court set up a high-level committee to look into the functioning of public authorities responsible for providing civic amenities to the city’s residents.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice G.B. Pattanaik said: “The monitoring committee will certainly try its best to achieve maximum results in the matter of giving unpolluted drinking water to citizens of Agra and those who visit the heritage city, and provide a good sewerage system and take adequate measures for disposal of solid waste.”

The ruling came on a petition filed by two concerned citizens ----- D.K. Joshi, superintendent engineer of the Yamuna Action Plan, and a social worker, Shri Raman. They had contended that drinking water in the city was unfit for human consumption.

Clearly, little came of the committee’s efforts, for, as recently as Jan. 9 this year, the court was forced to step in to solve Agra’s civic problems yet again, directing the civic agencies to remove all garbage and solid wastes from the streets of the city within seven days. This ruling also came on a public interest petition that aimed to improve the appearance of the city housing the Taj Mahal.

The court noted that it has relocated polluting small-scale industrial units, ordered forestation of the tourist complex and passed several orders on civic amenities, like public transport and drainage. Yet, i