The law that reaches 11% of it

1. There is no statutory Heritage Impact Assessment — anywhere in federal law

The Antiquities Act 1975 contains no HIA requirement. Its nearest devices — s.22 (approval within 200 feet), s.28 (restricted areas) and the protected-area permission regime — are discretionary approval gates without assessment methodology: no consultant standard, no publication duty, no appeal criteria. Where PWHI refers to HIA obligations, those arise under the World Heritage Operational Guidelines (paras 118bis and 172) for inscribed properties, or as a policy proposal — not as existing domestic law.

2. The one buffer rule is narrow, and its sanction is trivial

“Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, no development plan or scheme or new construction on, or within a distance of two hundred feet of a protected immovable antiquity shall be undertaken or executed [except] with the approval of the Director General.” — s.22, Antiquities Act 1975

It overrides other laws — but it reaches only 200 feet (61 m), only around protected antiquities, and carries no penalty of its own. A breach falls back on the residual penalty in s.32: up to six months, or a fine of up to Rs 5,000. Against development economics that is not a deterrent. For the 5,516 unprotected places, s.22 does not apply at all.

3. The sanctions are frozen in the 1970s

Damage to an antiquity (s.19) carries up to three years; unauthorised alteration by an owner (s.20) up to one year; signage and cabling offences (s.23) a fine capped at Rs 10,000; the residual penalty (s.32) Rs 5,000. Subordinate rules still recite fees and fines of Rs 4 and Rs 500. For contrast, the Punjab Walled City amendment of 2026 raised penalties to Rs 2 million and non-bailable — demonstrating what a modernised sanction looks like, and how far the federal scheme has fallen behind.

4. No statute distinguishes conservation from reconstruction

Nothing in the extracted corpus defines, in enforceable terms, the difference between scientific conservation (reversible, minimum intervention, compatible materials, fully documented) and reconstruction (replacement of lost fabric with new material). Two competent officials can therefore disagree in good faith about whether the same wall was conserved or rebuilt, and neither can be shown to have breached anything. That is the precise gap the Taxila matter turns on — see Taxila Watch and the State of Conservation report.