CESU adopts Taleswar Temple for conservation

BHUBANESWAR: Conservation works for the 9th century old Taleswar temple in the Old city area have been started by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach).   Under the Intach’s ‘Adopt a Monument’ initiative, the Central Electricity Supply Utility (CESU) has decided to adopt the monument and conserve it. An amount of ` 4 lakh is required for the conservation works and half of the amount was sanctioned by the Cesu recently. The monument is not under the protection of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). The conservation works would include lighting arrangements, landscaping and other maintenance work and would be completed within five months.Like the Taleswar temple, there are several other heritage sites in the Temple City that lie neglected as they are not covered under the ASI or the State Archaeology department. Former DG, Police and present convenor of the State chapter of Intach Amiya Bhushan Tripathy said Intach is trying to document and give a new lease of life to such monuments that are suffering the onslaughts of brutal urban growth sans any  protection. He said there are as many as 3000 unprotected, lesser known monuments across the State and of these, 300 are in the Temple City itself.   Intach has been urging public sector units to come forward to protect such monuments. It approached large companies such as CESU, Orissa Power Generation Corporation,Orissa Hydro Power Corporation to come forward to finance the preservation of monuments.   “We began the Bhubaneswar chapter of Intach in the city as early as 1986. Rich collections of palm leaf manuscripts have been taken care of to a great extent at our palm leaf conservation unit here. Now, the ancient monuments of the state have to be taken care of,” Tripathy said.   Besides preservation of lesser known monuments, the organisation is at present updating the documentation details of such monuments in and around Bhubaneswar. Also, it is working on releasing a book on such monuments that have been covered under the present documentation drive across the State. Earlier, it had released two books - Lesser Known Monuments in Bhubaneswar and Lesser Known Monuments in Puri.