SRINAGAR: The State Government has taken up the matter of conservation of Shri Pratap Singh (SPS) museum, Srinagar with the prestigious National Museum New Delhi and NRLC Lucknow, the Pioneer Conservation Laboratory of India as these institutions had expressed desire for preservation of this elite historical museum. The SPS also suffered extensive damage in the recent floods in the Valley.
The National Museum New Delhi in a quick response to the State Government’s request, deputed a three-member experts team to the State headed by R.P Savita, Director Conservation National Museum New Delhi which arrived here on 8th October, 2014. The team immediately took-up the process of conservation of several museum articles jointly with Museum Conservation Lab. The Museum Conservation Lab has also been activated and joined hands with the Central Government team.
The State Government is making optimal use of the expertise and all other available sources of the Central Government in restoring the pristine glory of the entire museum objects. The Central Conservation team has expressed its satisfaction and hailed the efforts of the SPS authorities in rescuing the flood hit museum objects.
The State in collaboration with the Central Conservation team has fully involved in restoring and conserving the flood hit items of the museum and efforts are also on to open up the museum for the general public as soon as possible. The cleaning process of museum galleries and its showcases has been completed, but the conservation and treatment of the items may take some more time.
It may be mentioned that after the devastation floods that hit the Valley and also badly hit the SPS museum, the authorities of Archives, Archaeology and Museum swiftly acted and started the rescue operations to save the museum. Almost major portion of the museum was in water but the efforts taken up by the department helped in rescuing its almost drowned museum collections. The departmental teams were successful in rescuing its organic and inorganic collections, which included antique Paintings, Manuscripts, Textiles and Art Objects. Since the rescuing of organic items was a tedious job, but the proper handling and the efforts taken up by the departmental experts helped in rescuing the delicate collections. However, few of the artifacts of papier-mashie could not be saved as they turned to be pulpy.
