Examine the role of the Archaeological Survey of India in protecting riverine archaeological heritage amid developmental and environmental pressures.

Riverine archaeological heritage — submerged sluices, anicuts, ghats and port sites — lies where a living river meets a buried past. As nodal agency under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (AMASR) Act, 1958 [1], the ASI's mandate here is legally robust but institutionally stretched.

ASI's protective role

• Statutory notification and conservation: ASI maintains 3,698 centrally protected monuments, a list that expressly covers tanks, water reservoirs, bathing ghats and bridges, conserved under the National Conservation Policy, 2014 [2].
• Spatial regulation: AMASR rules make the 100 m prohibited and further 200 m regulated zone around a notified monument a check on riverbank construction [1].
• Underwater Archaeology Wing (UAW): the specialised instrument for submerged sites, revived for Dwarka–Bet Dwarka exploration and earlier deployed at Mahabalipuram and Loktak Lake [3].
• Circle-level response to chance exposures: ASI's Tiruchi Circle documented brick structures exposed on the Kollidam riverbed near Lalgudi, provisionally read as an early historic water-regulation channel [4].

Developmental and environmental pressures

• Sand mining, dredging, embankments and riverfront works disturb undocumented sub-surface deposits before notification is possible.
• Floods, erosion and shifting channels expose remains briefly, then destroy them; seasonal submergence narrows the survey window.
• Living-monument conflict: structures like the Kallanai (Grand Anicut), functioning for nearly 2,000 years, remain operational irrigation assets, so conservation must accommodate use [5].

Constraints limiting effectiveness

• CAG's performance audit found untraceable monuments, acute fund and manpower shortages, and under 1% of ASI's budget on excavation [6].
• The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture (2022) noted ASI cannot seal illegal construction and depends on local police against encroachment [7].

ASI's riverine record is thus one of capable science constrained by weak enforcement and thin resources. Strengthening UAW staffing, mandating archaeological impact assessment for river projects, and empowering ASI as the Committee recommended would let the agency shift from reactive salvage to planned protection — securing, in the spirit of Article 49, a heritage that rivers both preserve and threaten.