New Delhi: Indian Culture Minister G. Kishan Reddy’s present data in the Parliament on Monday (July 26), according to which ticket sales at monuments fell from ₹336 crore in 2019-2020 to a little over ₹40 crore in 2020-2021, the year that saw the start of travel bans and lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Replying to a question, Culture Minister said there were 1.19 crore visitors at the Centrally-protected monuments and ₹40.32 crores in revenue in 2020-2021. In 2019-2020, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) monuments had seen 4.82 crore visitors that brought in a revenue of ₹336.23 crores, while in 2018-2019 there had been 5.31 crore visitors and ₹317.20 crores in revenue. While the ASI maintained 3,693 monuments across the country, 143 of them were ticketed, an ASI official said.
The Minister added the Centrally-protected monuments, including the World Heritage sites, were closed for 61 days from April 16 to June 15 during “lockdown 2.0 in view of the COVID-19 situation”, referring to the second wave of the pandemic earlier this year.
“The estimated loss of revenue due to closing of ticketed monuments in view of imposing of lockdown 2.0 [(Covid-19 situation] is approx. ₹35.40 crore, the calculation is based on revenue lost due to lack of sales of tickets,” he said.
