Visitors to the state-of-the-art new building of the SPS Museum at Lal Mandi, which cost about Rs 66 crore to built, complain about poor power supply.
Aamir Habib, who has identified himself as Central University of Kashmir student in the visitor’s book, has written: “Poor electricity (supply).”
Another visitor, Faizan Ahmad, has written: “No electricity, no power back up, no heating arrangements, government carelessly using tax money (sic).”
There are others like Nighat Nazir and Shafiya Nazir, who have written: “No power back up”.
The artifacts were shifted to the new building from the old Dogra-era mansion after 2014 floods. These are currently at display in five galleries—Numismatics, Archaeology, Decorative Art, Arms and Armory, and Culture-Society.
An official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, “We are ashamed because every now and then visitors complain of darkness. This was bound to happen because the Police Housing Corporation (which constructed the new building) was given the task of building a heritage museum.”
He said that many inverters are dysfunctional and the generator is operated only when a dignitary or a group of school children visit the museum. The museum now plans installing a new set of inverters.
Assistant director Archives, Archaelogy and Museums Mushtaq Ahmad Beigh said that “we have been requesting the chief engineer power development department for a special line for the past two years” but in vain.
He said that the available funds allow the staff to run the generator for only an hour a day.
Asked why new inverters are being installed and whether old ones were not up to the mark, Beigh said, “I had posed this question to our interior designer. He explained it to me. Basically, when we had installed these (old) invertors we were using halogen lights as there was no concept of LED lamps at the time.”
He said that every gallery will have power backup in the form of an inverter.