The Barisal Divisional Museum is yet to be launched as the renovation of about 200-year-old Barisal Collectorate Building, to be used as museum, was not completed
for lack of fund and approval of its organogram by the government.
After the end of a museum construction project for 2005-2007, the divisional museum was scheduled to be opened in June 2008, but the works were halted in early 2007 for fund crisis.
The Khulna archaeology department regional director, Shihabuddin Ahmed, the renovation works need at least Tk 24 lakh.
Appointment of adequate security personnel, curators and other officials was an important step in opening the museum, he added.
He said that the launching of the museum would be possible after finishing some more minor works, like lighting, galleries’ set up, building boundary walls and gardening.
Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Museum assistant director Golam Ferdous, also the construction in-charge of Barisal Divisional Museum, said artefacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance had already been listed for the museum.
He said the list included cannon of Sultani period, a letter of Mughal empress Nurjahan, Mughal Empire’s Bangle-Bihar-Orissa province nawab Siraj ud-Daulah’s sword, objects used by political leaders AK Fazlul Haque and Aswani Kumar Dutta, poet Jibanananda Das and bard Mukunda Das and several statues, coins, maps and manuscripts.
Shihabuddin Ahmed said in 2003 the people in Barisal organised a campaign demanding the old Collectorate Building should be preserved as a cultural heritage and urged the cultural affairs ministry to declare it a museum after its renovation.
The government declared it a cultural heritage in April 1, 2004 and asked the public works department to hand it over to the archaeology department.
Later, a Tk 2.43 crore project was approved for related works and the renovation works started in 2005, he added.
He also complained that the government only allocated Tk 1.85 crore and later stopped the project.
He told New Age that the government was yet
to employ necessary staff, including curator, deputy director, assistant deputy director, office staff,
security guards and caretakers.
If the government provided necessary fund within a month, the museum could possibly be launched next year, he added.
