Delhi’s protected monuments are facing sharply different threats even though the same heritage restrictions apply around them, according to an IIT Roorkee study of monuments protected by the Archaeological Survey of India. The findings point to a wider planning problem: heritage protection cannot be separated from the changing urban systems around each site, including drainage, construction, land use, traffic infrastructure and commercial activity.
The study, published in March this year, examined how the surroundings of protected monuments shape the risks they face. Its central finding is that the urban environment around a monument directly influences the nature and duration of the threat. In Nizamuddin, the concern is large construction activity around the Barapulla drain, described in the report as part of an old water channel. At Agrasen Ki Baoli, deep excavation for building foundations is the principal risk. In Hauz Khas, the challenge comes from existing buildings and commercial uses, including restaurants and bars.
These are not interchangeable pressures. A water-drainage system can be disrupted by infrastructure construction, while a subterranean heritage structure can be affected by excavation and changes in ground conditions. A historic precinct with established commercial activity presents a different enforcement and land-use problem. Yet the legal framework currently relies substantially on uniform distance-based restrictions around protected monuments.
Under the law, a 100-metre area around a protected monument is designated as prohibited, followed by a 200-metre regulated area. The study argues that distance alone cannot capture the risks at every site. Building height, external appearance, land use and surrounding activities may need to be considered while framing rules for individual monuments.
The distinction matters because a heritage buffer is not an empty circle on a map. It is a space where water moves, foundations are dug, roads are built, businesses operate and residents live. If regulation treats every buffer as physically and administratively identical, it may overlook the specific mechanisms through which a monument is exposed to damage.
In Nizamuddin, the reported pressure on the Barapulla drain illustrates how infrastructure can become a heritage issue. The drain is identified as part of an old waterway, while large construction and flyover-like projects are reported to be affecting natural drainage. Encroachment and unplanned development are also changing the surroundings of the monuments. The study describes these impacts as long-lasting, making the concern broader than temporary construction disturbance.
This raises an institutional question about how infrastructure decisions are assessed in historic areas. A project may be evaluated for traffic movement, land acquisition or engineering feasibility, but the study’s findings suggest that its effect on old water systems and the setting of nearby monuments also needs to be part of the planning process. The issue is not only whether construction falls within a legally defined radius, but whether it alters the urban conditions that support the site.
Agrasen Ki Baoli presents a different form of vulnerability. Its underground structure, which holds water, is identified as an important feature of the monument. Deep excavation for foundations in nearby buildings could damage that structure, with effects that may persist for a long period. In this case, the relevant risk is linked less to visible construction in the immediate vicinity and more to what happens below ground.
The example shows the limits of surface-level heritage assessment. A building may stand outside the most obvious visual zone while its foundation work reaches into a geological and structural environment connected to a historic monument. A distance-based rule may therefore need to be supported by site-specific information about underground structures, excavation depth and the physical characteristics of the area. The supplied study report does not specify additional technical safeguards, but it clearly identifies deep excavation as a major concern for the baoli.
Hauz Khas demonstrates yet another governance problem. The study notes that several existing buildings are located within the 100-metre prohibited area, while much of the 200-metre regulated area remains vacant. At the same time, restaurants, bars and other commercial activities operate in the area. This creates a mismatch between the formal geometry of the protection zones and the actual pattern of development and use.
The challenge here is not simply new construction. Existing buildings, commercial operations and visitor activity can collectively shape the environment around a monument. Applying identical rules based only on distance becomes difficult when one part of a buffer is already built up and commercially active while another remains largely open. The study’s suggestion that rules should account for land use, building form, height and surrounding activity is therefore an attempt to align regulation with the conditions that actually exist on the ground.
The report also identifies a lack of coordination between the rules of central, state and local agencies. This is significant because monument protection in a dense city rarely belongs to one institution alone. The agency responsible for heritage conservation may operate alongside departments handling roads, drainage, building permissions, land use, municipal services and commercial regulation. If each authority examines only its own statutory responsibility, the combined impact on a monument may remain unaddressed.
The 100-metre prohibited zone and the subsequent 200-metre regulated zone provide a common legal framework, but implementation depends on how that framework interacts with local planning decisions. A road project, a building proposal, a commercial licence and a drainage intervention may each be processed through separate administrative channels. The study’s emphasis on coordination suggests that the problem is partly institutional: different agencies may possess pieces of the information needed to understand a site’s vulnerability, without a sufficiently integrated system for acting on it.
This also explains why a single city-wide heritage rule can produce different outcomes. In one location, the priority may be protecting drainage and preventing encroachment. In another, it may be controlling excavation and safeguarding underground structures. Elsewhere, the critical task may be managing commercial activity and the visual and physical character of an already active precinct. The legal distance from a monument remains the same, but the urban processes operating within that distance do not.
The study therefore shifts the focus from monuments as isolated objects to monuments as components of living urban landscapes. Their condition is influenced not only by conservation work at the structure itself but also by what happens in adjoining streets, plots, drainage corridors and commercial areas. This is especially relevant in Delhi, where historic sites are embedded within a city that continues to add infrastructure, buildings and economic activity around them.
The evidence supplied in the report does not establish that every identified threat has already caused irreversible damage, nor does it provide a site-by-site assessment of structural deterioration. It does, however, identify the types of pressure that can produce long-term consequences and argues for monument-specific planning. That distinction is important. The study is warning about the relationship between urban change and heritage risk, rather than presenting every surrounding activity as proven damage.
For policymakers, the immediate issue is how to move from uniform buffers to context-sensitive protection plans without weakening the underlying legal safeguards. Such plans would need to reflect the physical setting, existing development, land use, building characteristics and infrastructure pressures around each monument. They would also require central, state and local agencies to coordinate their decisions rather than treating heritage clearance as a separate administrative step.
For residents and users of these areas, the consequences are practical. Changes to drainage can affect the wider neighbourhood, excavation can alter the safety environment around buildings, and commercial activity can change access and pressure on historic precincts. Heritage protection is therefore connected to ordinary urban functions, not limited to the preservation of architectural fabric.
The IIT Roorkee study confirms that Delhi’s monuments do not face one common urban threat. Nizamuddin, Agrasen Ki Baoli and Hauz Khas illustrate three different relationships between heritage and development: infrastructure pressure on an old water system, underground construction risk and the management of established commercial activity. The larger question for Delhi’s heritage authorities and planning agencies is whether protection rules can become sufficiently site-specific while remaining enforceable. The next stage will depend on how agencies translate that finding into coordinated plans for individual monuments.
