Evaluation of Sri Padmanabha Swamy temple assets from Feb 20

The evaluation and preparation of inventory of the amazing treasures kept in the secret cellars of the Sri Padmanabha Swamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram would start on February 20 as ordered by the Supreme Court. State-run Kerala Electronic Development Corporation (Keltron) would be in charge of the evaluation and documentation.

Three experts would associate with the evaluation and documentation in addition to the five members of the expert committee appointed by the apex court for the purpose. The evaluation of the treasures in the temple vaults, said to be worth over Rs 100,000 crore, is being done as per a directive of the Supreme Court.

An “experimental evaluation” of the treasures was carried out in the temple on Thursday to test the efficiency and accuracy of the systems developed and collected for the purpose. The result of the experimental evaluation, done without opening the vaults, would b presented to the Supreme Court along with the expert committee’s report on February 15.

A ten-member team would be engaged for the evaluation exercise. The members of the team, drawn from Keltron through a careful screening process with various conditions, have already completed a two-week training programme. Keltron had on Tuesday carried out a detailed test of the machinery and other systems to be used for process, expected to run for a full year.

Apart from Keltron, the ISRO is also giving technical support for the evaluation-documentation process. As bar-coding would not be practical in marking the articles (of daily temple use) kept in the treasure chests for identification, a laser engraving system provided by the ISRO will be used for this.

The Supreme Court had appointed a five-member committee for the accurate evaluation and detailed documentation of the treasures kept in the secret vaults of the historic temple after a former committee had found an amazing collection of gold, precious stones, etc in them, the value of which was put roughly at over Rs 100,000 crore