President Patil praises ASI''s restoration work in Cambodia

via CAAI

17/09/2010

Rakesh Mohan Chaturvedi

Siem Reap (Cambodia), Sep 16 (PTI) President Pratibha Patil today said India was proud to have been involved in conservation and restoration of ancient monuments in Cambodia and hailed the ever growing cultural and business ties with the ASEAN nation.

Speaking at a banquet organised in her honour by the Governor of Siem Reap province, Patil lauded the Archaeological Survey of India for its commendable job in the restoration of Ta Prohm temple here.

"India is proud to have been involved in the conservation and restoration efforts of Angkor Wat from 1986 to 1993 and is currently working for Ta Prohm Temple," she said.

Earlier, the ASI team working here for the restoration of Ta Prohm, a temple built by King Jayavarman VII in honour of his mother in the 12-13th century, made a presentation to Patil on the subject.

She was impressed by their work and praised their effort.

ASI, which was involved in restoration work in the 1990s of the world famous Angkor Wat site located here, undertook the project to renovate Ta Prohm in 2004.

The project got underway in 2006 after some studies and the work of ASI at the historical temple, that has been damaged several times when this country moved back and forth from Hinduism to Buddhism as the official religion, is scheduled to be completed by 2013-14.

"We have no complaints about the 17.43 Crore funds till 2010 (the earlier deadline) given to us for the restoration of the Ta Prohm temple. This amount is likely to be revised further," D S Sood, Assistant Superintendent Archaeological Engineer and ASI team leader said.

The Ministry of External Affairs is funding the project.

He said the ASI had earlier planned to restore the whole Ta Prohm temple - also called Tree temple as trees have grown on the walls of the structure - but International Coordination Committee (ICC) for restoration of Angkor Park Area recommended only five enclosures to be renovated.

The ICC, which consists of 11 countries including India, sends a team twice every year to assess the progress made in restoration work. (More) PTI RC ETB AKJ