Assembly blocks museum route

Hyderabad: The State Archaeology Museum is located inside the Assembly premises. Thus whenever the Andhra Pradesh or the Telangana Assembly is in session, entry to the museum is restricted.

To reach the museum, located at Gunfoundry, one has to cross a narrow bylane, which leads to the office of the department of archaeology and museum and has no parking facilities.

Since the formation of Telangana, no new artifact has been added to any of the museums and the last major refurbishment of the museum took place in 2006.

An official of the archaeology department said, “Attractions like Shilparamam, Lumbini Park and NTR Garden are located on main roads and have multiple entry and exits and food courts and parking space. Museums are located in secluded locations with none of these facilities.”

Another museum in Hyderabad, which very few people know about, is the tribal museum, which sees just about 1,500 visitors per month. It is located in the bylanes of Masab Tank, in the premises of the office of the department of tribal welfare. Most visitors to this museum are either school kids or research scholars.

The museum has huts of various tribes, their everyday tools and hunting weapons, their attire, traditional occupations, photographs etc.

A senior archaeology department official said, “Display of artifacts in state museums is poor with no proper lighting and shoddy glass cases which are not in line with museology. The maintenance of artifacts is also at a bare minimum. This affects the attractiveness of the museums.”