T.N. Budget 2024 | Open air museum to be set up at Keeladi at a cost of ₹17 crore

Tamil Nadu Finance Minister announces plans for Keeladi open-air museum, genetic study, and Indus Valley conference in 2024.

T.N. Finance Minister .Thangam Thennerasu, on Monday, February 19, 2024, said an open-air museum would be constructed at the Keeladi excavation site, at a cost of ₹17 crore, to showcase the brick structures, ring wells, and factory zones that have been found during the Keeladi excavations. The site already houses a museum, where hundreds of artefacts unearthed since the excavations began in 2014-15, are housed.

Mr. Thennarasu, who presented the State Budget for 2024-25, also said that a sum of ₹3 crore is to be sanctioned for a study of the genetic antiquity, migration patterns, agricultural practices, cultural traditions, and dietary habits of the Tamil people. This study will use advanced genomic methodologies, at the genetics laboratory of the Department of Culture at Madurai Kamarajar University.

The Minister said that in 1924, the former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Sir John Marshall, was responsible for the excavations of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro, two of the main cities that comprise the Indus Valley civilisation, and to commemorate this event a century later, an Indus Valley Civilisation Centenary Conference will be convened in Chennai with the participation of scholars from across the world.

Mr. Thennarasu said Tamil Nadu was the only State in the country to have allotted significant funds towards archaeological excavations, and in the current year, ₹5 crore would be spent for excavations in Keezhadi in Sivaganga district, Vembakottai in Virudhunagar district, Porpanai Kottai in Pudukkottai district, Keezhnamandi in Tiruvannamalai district, Thirumalapuram in Tenkasi district, Kongalnagaram in Tiruppur district, Marungur in Cuddalore and Chennanur in Krishnagiri district.

Besides, excavations will also take places in other States in search of Tamil roots. These will be carried out in Muziris in Kerala, Palur in Odisha, Vengi in Andhra Pradesh and Muski in Karnataka.

Further, a pilot study to undertake deep sea excavations will be conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Ocean Technology and the Indian Maritime University in the coastal regions of Korakai and Alagankulam, the ancient ports of Pandya dynasty, at a cost of ₹65 lakh.