Making the mothers visiting the iconic Taj Mahal happy and comfortable, Union Culture Minister Prahlad Singh Patel today inaugurated a Babycare and Feeding Room in the complex of Taj Mahal in Agra and began the operation of a water conservation system at the historic site.
The Taj Mahal, with an average of 22,000 daily visitors, is a major hotspot for Indian and international tourists. Earlier this year, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) had announced to build a breastfeeding room as a relief to female visitors. The Taj Mahal, built as a monument to a woman who died in childbirth, would be a first for India where conservative attitudes toward public breastfeeding mean nursing mothers are often shamed and told to cover up.
“It is the first baby feeding room to open at any Indian monument,” Vasant Kumar Swarnkar, Superintending Archeologist at ASI, told media. “It’s a 12-by-12 feet room within the Taj Mahal campus. It has a diaper-changing table, sofa sets specially designed so one can feed her baby, and there is also rubber flooring. One woman employee will be there to assist the mothers. The room will allow privacy to breastfeeding mothers and is very important,” he said.
The nursing room at Taj Mahal could be the first of a series of such centres at other monuments. An ASI official said a similar baby feeding room is getting ready at the Agra Fort, and within a month, another such centre could come up at Fatehpur Sikri monuments.
Earlier, when announcing the idea for the baby feeding room, Swarnkar had declared that it would help the ‘millions of mothers who visit with their babies’. Public breastfeeding still carries a social stigma in India where mothers are expected to be covered head-to-toe. The Taj Mahal attracts up to 8 million visitors annually.
