Reopened monuments in Delhi find few takers

Qutub Minar, which had about 10,000 visitors daily, had sold 100-125 tickets daily since Monday

July 11, 2020 07:24 pm | Updated 07:38 pm IST - NEW DELHI

A view of Qutub Minar, at Mehrauli in New Delhi. File.

A view of Qutub Minar, at Mehrauli in New Delhi. File.

Iconic historical monuments in Delhi that used to see between 5,000 and 10,000 visitors every day received well under 100 visitors on average this week as the Archaeological Survey of India opened its sites from Monday after an almost four-month closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the numbers went up slightly on Saturday and officials expected the footfall to increase on Sunday. Union Culture Minister Prahlad Singh Patel had announced on July 2 that all Centrally-protected monuments under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) would open from July 6, subject to rules of local administrations and guidelines of the Union Health and Home Ministries. The number of visitors was capped between 5,000 to 2,000 each day for different monuments, and ticket sales moved to online-only mode.

Also read |Reopened monuments wear a deserted look on first day

According to the ASI’s online ticket portal, Qutub Minar had the highest number of visitors from Monday to Friday, with 100 to 125 tickets being sold daily on an average. An official said the monument used to see around 10,000 visitors daily. On Saturday evening, just 174 tickets out of the 1,500 available for the slot of 12 p.m. till 6 p.m. had been sold as of 5 p.m. Similarly, Humayun’s Tomb which used to receive 6,000-7,000 daily visitors, according to the official, had got 50 to 75 this week, with 132 tickets out of 1,000 being sold for the afternoon slot on Saturday by 5 p.m. The Red Fort, which normally gets around 8,000 to up to 12,000 visitors on holidays, received just 30-40 visitors daily this week. Of the 1,000 tickets available on Saturday afternoon, just nine had been sold for Purana Qila, which used to see about 5,000 to 6,000 visitors daily, the official said.

While the ASI has made arrangements for temperature checks, hand sanitisation and online booking of tickets at entry points of monuments, officials said the number of visitors was unlikely to bounce back till public transport, particularly the Metro, re-starts.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.