At last Tipu Sultan armoury gets a new home
- A consulting engineer had initially suggested dismantling of the Tipu Sultan’s armoury and building a replica 150 metres away from where it is now.
- Dismantling or moving of ancient monuments is a punishable offence the Ancient Monument and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act in 2010 and The Ancient Monuments Preservation Act 1904.
- Therefore the first idea was scrapped and finally they have decided to uproot the entire monument and place it on a new foundation.
FollowThe 250 year-old Tipu Sultan’s armoury in Srirangapatna will be moved 100 mtres from the current location. For the past seven years, the Centre, Karnataka state government, railways and historians have struggled to reach a consensus. But finally a consensus has been reached and the monument is being transported.
Tipu Sultan’s armoury is situated 20-km from Mysuru, towards Bengaluru. The monument comes two stops before Srirangapatna Railway Station.
When the idea of transporting the monument was first proposed in 2009, no Indian firm or contractors were ready to take the onus. Now, an American firm named Wolfe Private Limited has joined hands with an Indian company PSL to complete this ₹13.5 crore project of transporting the monument.
The historical armoury is revered by the locals and they initially thought it would be impossible to do transport the monument.
The reason why the governments, railways and the historians failed to reach a consensus was because the monument was situated in the way of doubling the Bengaluru-Mysuru railway track.
In a way, the doubling of the railway track is necessary because as it will bring down the travel time between the two cities at least by half an hour. Secondly, heavy population of the city can be controlled to some extent as well as migration will be minimised. As of now, the existing track is just 15 metres away from the armoury.
