Cuttack, April 27: The architect of modern Orissa, Utkal Gaurav Madhusudan Das, will be remembered across the state tomorrow on the occasion of his 163rd birth anniversary.

Orissa High Court has planned to offer floral tributes by garlanding his statue on the court premises by the Chief Justice. Advocates across the state also observe Das’s birthday as Lawyers’ Day.

Even the district administration plans to pay floral tributes to Das. “We will pay floral tributes at his grave at Gorakabar and garland his statues at Cantonment Road, Union Club and Shailabala Women’s College,” said Govinda Raul, district public relations officer.

“In fact, every year, the government authorities observe his birth anniversary by paying floral tributes to his statues. The only exception was during his 159th birth anniversary, which was marked by opening of Madhusudan Sangrahalaya — a museum to display articles and objects used by the late Madhusudan Das, including books, photographs, and paper manuscripts,” said a government official.

The state culture department had opened the museum in a hall on the ground floor of Madhusmruti, which was once the home of Madhusudan Das. The building is part of Shailabala Women’s College today.

At that time, tall plans were also announced by the government to expand and convert Madhusmruti into a full-fledged memorial museum. But after four years, one can see that the museum has not expanded even an inch.

Artefacts, most of which are more than 100 years old, were wallowing under the ravages of time without proper conservation measures in a locked room. These got a new lease of life with the opening of the museum. But apparent neglect in maintaining and expanding the museum has been clearly visible four years after its foundation.

Today, the museum hardly attracts any visitors. “The daily number of visitors to the museum ranges between two and eight. There are also some days when nobody comes to visit the museum,” said Pramod Kumar Baral, monument attendant at the museum.

“It’s a pity that articles and objects, especially the furniture and the cot used by the maker of modern Orissa, are being displayed by cramming them in such a small area,” wrote one Srikant Goutam of Bhubaneswar in the visitor’s notebook at the museum.

Museum-in-charge J.P. Das conceded that proper display of the artefacts had not been possible because of space constraint.

“We have some more exhibits which cannot be displayed because of lack of space. Efforts are on at the government level to expand the museum to more rooms of Madhusmruti,” Das said.