Temple treasure: Expert committee meet on Aug 10

 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The five-member expert committee, appointed by the Supreme Court to assess the value of the treasure found in chambers of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple, will deliberate on setting up of a museum in the next meeting on August 10. Sources told Express that the meeting would have a five-point agenda, which includes discussion on documentation, storage, retrieval, security and safety other than deciding on setting up of the museum, where the valuables with historic and antique value would be kept. The committee, chaired by C V Anandabose, Vice-Chancellor of the National Museum Institute, comprises M V Nair, Archeological Department, V K Harikumar, executive officer of the temple, B V Raja, Archeological Survey of India and Vikas Sharma, Reserve Bank of India, as members. The committee will grade the articles from the chambers A, C, D, E and F and will organise an inventory of all valuables and take videography and photography. The Supreme Court, in its directive last month, had asked the committee to categorise the treasure into three - those having historic and antique value, those having only physical value and those for daily use in the temple.  The expert panel will also seek the views of the three-member SC-appointed monitoring panel, headed by Justice M N  Krishnan, retired High Court judge, Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma, head of the Travancore royal family and K Jayakumar, Devaswom Secretary, as members. The process of the evaluation was started on August 1 after the panel visited the chambers and the actual examination of the treasure will take place in the coming week after the discussion on August 10.Already the work on devising a long-term plan for the maintenance of the treasure and preparation of the security scheme to protect it is on.