What is Taj Heritage Corridor?

The Taj Corridor project was intended to upgrade tourist facilities near the Taj Mahal and was to be implemented during the tenure of Mayawati as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. However, it has been getting stalled because of political overtones and charges of rampant corruption and abuse of office.The Taj Heritage Corridor case is an alleged scam that erupted in 2002–2003 with Mayawati and a minister in her government, Nasimuddin Siddiqui, charged with corruption.

The then BJP government at the Centre gave the Environmental Clearance required for the project near Taj Mahal. However, later on the BJP backed out and then started saying that the project was not cleared by the Environment Ministry and blamed Mayawati for starting construction work near the Taj Mahal. The total estimated cost of the project was Rs. 1.75 billion.

The project was started with the support of the BJP and interrupted when Mayawati Bahujan Samaj Party disaligned itself with that party on 25 August 2003. There were accusations that political equations changed because of BJP's hostility toward the Taj Heritage Corridor project.The project is now defunct, and plans are being made to remove the partial construction near the Taj Mahal site and replace it with a low tech forested greenbelt. The High Court of Allahabad has ruled in favour of a 45–500 million project but exactly who will foot the ASI bill remains to be seen.