Bhubaneswar, Sept. 9: The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) has grand plans to preserve the state's abundant heritage and its recent as well as ancient history.
Sharing the initiatives planned to conserve the state's heritage, Intach chairman major general L.K. Gupta said: "We will inaugurate the museum in memory of Subhash Chandra Bose in Puri this month."
Gupta is here on a visit to the state and launched a book documenting the history of monuments along the legendary route of Jagannath Sadak, most of which is now in neglect.
The book has details of ancient buildings on the route that pilgrims to Puri took from Calcutta centuries ago.
Gupta said the biggest challenge in conservation of Odisha's heritage sites and manuscripts is the lack of awareness among.
He said: "We plan to create more awareness campaigns to convince people who have rich collections of ancient palm leaf manuscripts to approach Intach for their preservation."
Among some of the most significant future initiatives of the trust will be the publishing of more books documenting history of heritage elements like buildings or monuments, people, cultural traditions and so on. Scholars of history and archaeology as well as volunteers who pursue such documentation out of passion will be encouraged and supported by Intach. "We will soon be coming out with a book that will serve as the guide to the cultural heritage of Odisha," said Gupta.
While in 2011 there were short projects by Intach in which corporate houses such as Central Electricity Supply Utility (Cesu) and British-Australian multinational firm Rio Tinto had adopted temples to fund their conservation, now they will motivate people of localities with ancient monuments to adopt the heritage site.