Meet on Friday for actual evaluation of treasure

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The five-member expert committee appointed by the Supreme Court to assess the value of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple treasure will start the Phase II exercise on August 26 with a clear-cut mandate of starting the actual evaluation of the treasure.  Sources told Express that the August 26 meeting would chalk out the date and methods to be adopted for carrying out the scientific evaluation of the treasure. A separate meeting with the three-member monitoring committee appointed by the Supreme Court, comprising Justice M N Krishnan, head of the Travancore Royal Family Uthradom Thirunal Marthandavarma and Devaswom Secretary K Jayakumar, will also be held on the same day. The monitoring panel will be appraised of the progress made in Phase I, which according to the SC expert committee is ahead of the schedule.  The meeting assumes significance particularly against the backdrop of Travancore Royal Family filing a plea in the Supreme Court not to open the B chamber and also not to videograph or photograph the proceedings of the evaluation as directed by the SC. The Travancore Royal Family approached the Supreme Court based on the astrological findings in the Devaprasnam conducted at the temple.  As reported in these columns earlier the final draft was prepared on August 17 on documentation, storage, retrieval, security and safety. The examination will be conducted using radiography, X-ray energy spectroscopy and neutron activation analysis. Usually, neutron activation analysis is used to detect the component metals. The committee chaired by C V Anandabose, Vice-Chancellor, National Museum Institute, comprises M V Nair of the Archeological Department, V K Harikumar, executive officer of the temple, B V Raja of the Archeological Survey of India and Vikas Sharma of the Reserve Bank of India as members.  The Supreme Court had directed the committee to grade the articles retrieved from the chambers A, C, D, E and F and to organise an inventory of all valuables and take videography and photography. The apex court in its directive had asked the committee to categorise it into three - those having historic and antique value, those having only physical value and those for daily use in the temple.