HYDERABAD: In yet another instance of a historic structure being neglected to the extent that dilapidation threatens its very survival, the 121-year-old Nizam’s observatory and weather station built in Nizamabad town in 1901, has been crying for attention.
Just around the same time when the Nizamiah Observatory was built in Phisalbanda Palace of Hyderabad in 1901 by Nawab Zafar Yar Jung Bahadur, the minister of defence and an amateur astronomer during the sixth Nizam’s rule in the erstwhile Hyderabad State, a similar observatory was built in Nizamabad as well. It may be mentioned here that the observatory in Hyderabad was part of the most prestigious international programme called ‘Carte-Du-Ciel’ (astrographic chart and catalogue) to map the sky photographically, and had recorded 7,63,542 observations of stars back then.
The observatory in Nizamabad was used as a weather station, which had probably acted as a supportive observatory for the Nizamia observatory in Hyderabad back then. The heritage structure has also housed the irrigation office of the erstwhile Hyderabad State, where several observations with regard to the local weather used to be recorded.
Presently, the weather station Nizamabad town is housing an office of the irrigation department, and is under the ownership of the Roads and Buildings department. A weather station of the Indian Meteorological Department has been constructed in the premises, which has been continuing the work that used to be done by the old observatory.
Though some of the equipment of the weather station could be seen missing from the building, the tower on the structure used for weather observations can still be seen. The old district collectorate of Nizamabad, also a heritage structure, which lies right across the road from the old weather station, has been demolished. Not just in Nizamabad, across the State, historic heritage structures in rural areas are being demolished to pave way for construction of hospitals, new district collectorates and other offices.
Heritage activists are concerned that the weather station and observatory in Nizamabad could also meet such a fate, if it is not declared a heritage-protected structure, so that it can be conserved and adaptively reused.