The documentation of the treasure unearthed at the famous Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple last year began Monday morning with a joint meeting of the two committees appointed by the Supreme Court. One of the committees is headed by M.V. Nair and the other by retired Justice M.N. Krishnan. Both committees comprise representatives from the Kerala government, the royal family of the erstwhile princely state of Travancore who are the official custodians of the temple, and also experts in this field.
According to the earlier reports, the temple is belived to have a treasure trove of precious jewels which is belived to be worth of more than Rs. 1 lakh crore, making it the richest temple in the world.
In all, there are six vaults in the temple of which five have been opened so far based on a petition filed by former IPS officer T.P. Sudararajan. It was in July last year that the Supreme Court appointed a committee to estimate the treasure from Vault A which had remained unopened for more than 150 years.
A committee member told the reporters that the first step would be to open Vault C. each item would be videographed, a bar code placed on it and then the valuation would be made.
An official was quoted as saying that a State-of-the-art-equipment from the ISRO is being used and state owned Keltron is co-ordinating the valuation. It is going to take a long time to complete this process and the entire valuation operation will be monitored by officials sitting in a control room set up inside the temple premises.
On February 9, a trial stock-taking was done and Nair had expressed his satisfaction at the way it was undertaken and had announced that the original valuation would begin from today.
The member again added that the E and F Vaults would be documented today. Then, an interim report would be submitted to the court and only then the stock-taking on Vault A would be done. With regard to Vault B, it would be the discretion of the Apex Court.
Incidentally, Sunderarajan passed away last year and another co-petitioner also passes away early this month.
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