NT NETWORK
PANAJI
The Association of Friends of Astronomy (AFA), which manages the Public Astronomical Observatory, set up under the Department of Science and Technology, has claimed that the works division of Public Works Department, during the last one and half decade, has neither carried out any maintenance of the Junta House building nor upgraded the observatory facility.
With the PWD blaming the AFA for causing damage to the roof, which “ultimately resulted in water seeping into the lift chamber,” the NGO revealed that it has been requesting the works division of the PWD for the past 16 years to take up the repair work of the Junta House terrace roof and to upgrade the observatory facility, which is in a dilapidated state.
“The PWD has only shown apathy towards taking up the upgradation and waterproofing work of the Public Amateur Observatory at the Junta House, which is visited by students and foreign tourists on a daily basis, and as such the activity of daily deep sky observation has been stopped. The number of visitors has dropped as it is difficult for them to climb up to the seventh floor in the absence of an elevator to participate in the activities,”said Satish Nayak, president of AFA.
Every year, from November 14 to May 31, activities like daily sky observations, documentary film screening, lectures, workshops, exhibitions, discussions and children’s programmes are held at the observatory.
Interestingly, the PWD in its report has mentioned that the management of Public Amateur Observatory ‘punctured’ the waterproofing cover of the staircase slab to fix a rotating shaft for installing a portable observatory for public, and as a result water started entering the elevator room.
The management of Public Astronomical Observatory had outsourced the work of fabricating an observatory dome to install 14 inch celestron telescope on the terrace of 50-year-old building to a group of final year polytechnic students in the 2010 year as the PWD could not take up the work due to lack of funds.
“The observatory management had absolutely no experience of installing the dome, and had to outsource the project in 2010. However, there is a possibility that waterproofing cover was damaged while carrying out the dome installation work, but we dismantled the dome and removed the permanent telescope following the direction from the PWD in June allowing the department to carry out the waterproofing work, which it has not completed as yet,” Nayak added.
A visit made by this reporter revealed that the observatory dome, which was ‘punctured’, is not located above the elevator chamber while the permanent telescope that was placed 23 years ago on a cement cushion and not on a slab, has been dismantled six months back, following the request from the PWD to carry out the waterproofing work.
Moreover, the terrace is being used to dump discarded material, and water seepage is observed every year during the monsoon, and just two years ago a portion of the roof slab had come crashing down in the premises of Swami Vivekananda Society, located on the sixth floor of the building, however no untoward incident was reported.
When contacted, the mechanical division of the PWD informed that it is going to replace the old elevators at the building with new ones, and a tender for that has already been floated.
