Davangere: Chamarajpet in Davangere city, which is always bustling with people, has a weighing scale and measurement shop-Shankar enterprises. On its first floor, a museum of weighing scales and measures, said to be the first of its kind in the country, will open for the public soon.
The museum called ‘Tula Bhavan’ has about 1300 different weighing scales and measures earlier used by Nizams, Mysore Odeyas, Sultans etc. Weighing scales from the 17th century till recent times have been collected from different parts of the country and have been kept in the museum after repairing them. This apart, name and other details have been scribbled down on a paper stuck beneath the scales.
For fifty-four-year-old Mr. Basavaraj Yalamalli who is the architect of this museum, collecting stamps and coins was his hobby. Since his trade is weighing scales and measures for the past 32 years, Mr. Yalamalli developed an interest in collecting different weighing scales and measurements in 1997-98.
He is fully involved in the collection of scales from 2006. For this purpose, he had travelled across India except for Jammu and Kashmir and the north-eastern states.
This apart, he bagged the bronze medal at the national level stamp exhibition-INPEX-2008 held in Chennai and silver medal at the state level stamp exhibition-KARNA PEX-2007 held at Bengaluru. Before embarking on collecting weighing scales, he had visited about 50 museums to know about the articles on display. Except Manjusha museum located in Dharmastala in Mangaluru district, no other museum including national museums have displayed such articles.
One can see different weighing scales and measures under one roof. Depth measuring tape made in German, folding scales made in America and England, wire gauges made in German, wooden beam scales of Mysore state, weighing stones used during Adil Shah period have been collected.
