Entry fee to Taj Mahal from April 1, 2016 would be Rs 40 for Indians and Rs 1000 for foreigners

The ASI has issued a final notification that entry prices to the Taj Mahal, the 17th century mausoleum would be revised from the new financial year i.e. April 1, 2016 and, Indians would now now have to pay Rs 40, while foreign nationals will have to pay Rs 1,000. This increase in real terms would be 200 times for Indians and 5,000 times for foreigners since 1966 - at that time, the entry fee was just 66 paise for both Indians and foreigners.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 1 April 2016.

The entry fees has been revised 11 times over the past 50 years and differential pricing for Indians and foreign nationals is a recent phenomenon. For the first 34 years, 1966 to 2000, since introducing the entry fee, the price was same for both Indian and foreign tourists.
The increase in entry fees is expected to double the state and central government's income from sale of tickets at the Taj. In 2014-15, the figure was Rs 22.7 crore, which was about 23% of the total Rs 93 crore generated from all 116 ticketed monuments under the central conservation agency.
This is exclusive of the additional fee collected by Agra Development Authority as 'toll tax' on all monuments in Agra. This is Rs 10 as toll tax for indians and Rs 500 for foreigners.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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