The Bangladeshi government has to open all heritage sites and museums under the Department of Archaeology on a limited scale from tomorrow, after six months of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We had proposed to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs to reopen the country’s heritage on a limited scale by maintaining fitness guidelines. The branch approved our application. I won the approval order today and will open the estate on a limited scale maintaining fitness guidelines,” Md Hannan Mia, Director General of the Department of Archaeology, told the Daily Star today.
“Our new fiscal year (2020-2021) has already begun and we have set an economic target of 8 million rupees Tk. We expect about 49 lakh of tourists in this ongoing exercise,” he said.
After the coronavirus pandemic hit Bangladesh, all heritage sites closed towards the end of March.
The passing government lost a lot of non-tax profits and thousands of people lost their profit source resources and had to go through some very difficult days closing.
Tota Mia, 55, a gakul resident in Sadar upazila in Bogura, sold daily brochures to tourists for 2,000 to 3,000 Tk. “Every day I come here (Mahasthangarh) hoping to see that the site is open, but without success. The only source of income came here by promoting story-based brochures, but now it stopped,” he said. But I hope that from tomorrow, Tota Mia will take over her small business.
According to the Department of Archaeology, there are 21 heritage museums and 518 heritage sites in Bangladesh under the Department of Archaeology. Visitors and tourists want initial rates for 21 museums and around 10 to 12 archaeological sites.
In fiscal year 2018-2019, the branch aimed to welcome at least visitors to Lakh. A total of 58. 45 Lakh tourists visited the sites that year.
The economic objective of the branch involved set around five million rupees of Tk and gained millions of rupees of 6. 92 Tk in the 2018-19 monetary year.
However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the archaeology branch was unable to meet its goal of visitors and income set for fiscal year 2019-20.
“The tourism sector in Bangladesh depends mainly on heritage tourism. “Foreign tourists and researchers make a stopover in the country basically for the sake of archaeology,” said CEO Hannan Mia.
The objective of the branch is 44 lakh of visitors, but only 32 lakh of tourists visited museums and heritage sites in fiscal 2019-2020. The economic objective of Tk 8. 54 crore and the branch only won Tk 5. 34 crore in fiscal year 2019-2020.
In the Rajshahi and Rangpur divisions, there are around 205 ancient sites and 6 heritage museums. Tourists will have to pay initial fees for six museums and 4 heritage sites in any of the divisions, according to the Department of Archaeology.
“We won less than our goal in fiscal year 2019-20 due to the closure of all sites and museums due to the pandemic. We have lost domestic and foreign tourists in Mahasthangarh, Paharpur Buddha Bihar Tajhaat Jamindar Bari, Rabindra Kacharibari at primary events such as Eid, Janmo Joyonty and Mujib Borsho of Rabindranath,” said Naheed Sultana, regional director of the regional workplace of Rajshahi and Rangpur (Bogura) of the Department of Archaeology.
“On each and every one of the great occasions, between three and four tourists from Lakh make a stopover at one vital site and museum per day,” Naheed Sultana said.