Officials conduct inspection at Kolhapur archives office

Kolhapur: Officials from the public works department (PWD), archives, KMC town planning, fire, heritage committee, and Parikh bridge renovation committee inspected the Kolhapur archives office building (record office) to ensure its safety following the fire Keshavrao Bhosale Natyagruh.The building contains precious records of maintenance expenditure of Raigad Fort, manuscripts of Chhatrapatis, orders, gazettes of the then Karvir govt, records of Maratha chieftain families, and important records of historical heritage sites, among others.Members of the Parikh committee, considering vehicle pollution on the premises of the historical archives building, demanded the road in the tehsil office be kept under the custody of the archives office by restricting other traffic movement towards the under-construction Karvir tehsil office. "This will ensure the documents are not harmed due to pollution," a member said.Apart from this, suggestions such as using cloud technology to backup historical documents, setting up a necessary system to control pollution, creating a fire protection plan, implementing necessary instructions from the urban planning and heritage committee immediately, and updating CCTV cameras and security system in the entire building by the Kolhapur archives department were put forward during the inspection.Assistant director of archives Deepali Patil, deputy engineer of construction department Mahesh Kanzar, architect Indrajit Nageshkar, Kolhapur Municipal Corporation (KMC) fire brigade chief Manish Ranbhise, and social activists Rahul Choudhary, Feroz Sheikh and Ratan Bandar were present on the occasion.