• Bribe Fighter
• 12 years ago
• 2387 views

Elephanta World Heritage Site near Mumbai, managed by the Archeological Survey of India

• Police
• Activities on Beat

I was not actually asked for a bribe but a different form of corruption seems to be ongoing at the Elephanta Caves World Heritage Site near Mumbai. Possible multiple sales of the same tickets for foreigners (priced 250 Rs as opposed to 10 Rs entry fee for Indian nationals) may result in revenue of the Archeological Survey of India being pocketed by unscrupulous staff members.

When entering the site with my wife on Friday 21 February at ca. 12 noon on 21/2) we duly purchased foreigner tickets priced Rs 250 in the ticket booth. Right beside the ticket booth the tickets were controlled upon entry by a
security guard. Instead of detaching the control coupon and returnin us the ticket, the guard insisted on taking whole tickets without detaching the coupons. He had already quite a lot of foreigner tickets (maybe ca. 40-50) on his table. On my inquiry he told me he would return us the tickets when we leave the site.

As we left the site, we asked the guard for our ticket. He gave us one ticket back (without the control coupon). Only when we insisted on having also the second ticket, he reluctantly took it from his pocket, detached the control coupon and gave us the ticket.

I suppose that most foreign visitors do not insist on having their tickets back, simply hand them over them to the security guards on entering the site and then forget about the matter. If the guards are in agreement with the ticket booth staff (and this practice took place just beside the ticket booth), it is likely that such tickets are then resold to other foreign visitors and the proceeds are possibly pocketed by security staff instead of reaching the ASI.

We were far from delighted by the dual pricing system resulting in foreign visitors paying 20 or 25 times the entry fee for Indian visitors to ASI-managed sites. However, we can accept it if the proceeds are really used towards the maintenance of the unique cultural heritage managed by the ASI, definitely not if they are misappropriated by unscrupulous staff members.

I have sent an e-mail concerning this matter to senior management of the Archeological Survey of India (using addresses from this website: http://asi.nic.in/asi_aboutus_organization_headquarter.asp) but got no answer.

PS. My contact number is incorrect, as the for does not accept international phone numbers.