MYSURU: Tourists visiting Mysuru to get a glimpse of the royal palaces and other major destinations have now a new place to look for. India’s first sandalwood museum, set up at Aranya Bhavan in the city, was formally inaugurated on Monday.
District Minister ST Somashekhar formally inaugurated the museum at the Sandalwood depot area inside the Mysuru forest division office (Aranya Bhavan). In this first-of-its-kind museum, over 20 species of sandalwood and its logs are kept for display, besides several handicrafts and sandalwood products manufactured and designed by Karnataka Soaps and Detergents Limited and Karnataka State Arts and Crafts Emporium.
The forest department, which has conceptualized this museum, aims to spread awareness about the history, cultivation of sandalwood products along with providing the people a platform to look at varieties of sandalwood species.
The museum also displays several posters sensitizing the visitors about sandalwood classifications, various techniques of Sandalwood farming, and subjects pertaining to ownership of sandalwood. The charts put up here mentions the rates fixed by the government for various types of Sandalwood.
Sandalwood root weighing 112.15 kgs which contains oil content, a sandalwood step ‘Vilayath Budh’ weighing 38.500 kgs, three different classes of billets, Ghotla, and many other sandalwood logs are kept for display at the museum.
Speaking after the inauguration of the museum, ST Somashekhar said that to attract more visitors, they are mulling shifting the museum from Aranya Bhavan to either Mysuru palace or Mysuru zoo.
“Plans are there to shift it from here to Mysuru palace premises, but the palace board has expressed that there was a lack of space to house the museum and sought time to construct a new building. We are informed that there is a space at Mysuru zoo as of now. As both the places see huge footfalls of people, we would soon decide to shift it to either of these places,” he said.