THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The scientific documentation of the treasure unearthed from Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple began here on Monday morning with a joint meeting of the two committees appointed by the Supreme Court.The documentation of items from E and F vaults started under the supervision of expert committee, amidst tight security. The joint meeting of the expert committee headed by conservationist M V Nair and the committee on temple treasures headed by former High Court judge M N Krishnan decided not to open the C vault, which has been sealed by the Thirvananthapuram Principal Sub-Court. It was decided at the meeting to approach the Supreme Court to seek special permission to open the C vault. The E and F vaults mostly contain items of gold and silver, brass utensils and lamps.The documentation is being carried out using electronic gadgets and high-end devices supplied by Keltron. As only 20 items can be documented at one day, the process would be a lengthy one, taking at least an year to complete. In all, there are six vaults in the temple of which five have been opened based on a petition filed by a former IPS official T P Sundararajan, who passed away during the trial last July. In July last year, the Supreme Court-appointed committee found the treasure from vault A which had remained unopened for more than 150 years. The B vault will only be opened after completing the inventory of items of other vaults. For this, the expert panel has to get the permission of the Supreme Court.M V Nair told mediapersons that the entire proceedings would be recorded using high-end cameras and would be held under foolproof security. ‘’There is a dress code to be followed and each item will be marked with computerized bar code. The Digital Archiving of Temple Antiques (DATA) has been installed to ensure that there was no manual intervention.The main aim of creating computerised inventory is to store information about each item in the temple treasure, which could be retrieved easily in an efficient manner. DATA will also help to categorise the temple treasures into three as directed by the Supreme Court,’’ he said.In the first phase, only the documentation of the temple wealth would take place and in the second phase the evaluation of the temple wealth would start. The high-end gadget being used include karatmeter, which determines the elemental composition of all gold alloys, platinum group metals and silver alloys.CCTV cameras are mounted outside the vaults and the proceedings are also recorded as directed by the Supreme Court. The treasure trove contains precious jewels which is estimated to be worth more than Rs 1 lakh crore.
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