NEW DELHI: The Archeological Survey of India (ASI) has decided to take a giant leap towards converting museum visits into an interactive and immersive experience.
The agency will redesign and upgrade all 52 site museums across states, including prominent facilities such as Fort George Museum (Chennai), Archaeological Museum (Purana Qila, Delhi) and 1857 Residency Museum (Lucknow), as per international standards and practices.
As part of the plan, the display scheme of artifacts will be reworked and gallery plans will also be revived to make them attractive and more informative as the agency has also proposed to add information plaques and interpretative panels.
Under the mega renovation exercise, innovative illumination and technology will be introduced besides arrangements for unhindered access to differently-abled visitors and putting adequate disaster management measures.
Officials aware of the development said the ASI has started looking for an agency that will conceptualise, plan, design and carry out content development of the museums.
As per the bid document seen by this newspaper, the selected agency will also monitor the execution of the work.
The ASI is also developing several new museums as per the internationally acknowledged practices and adapting newest digital technologies being used by several museums abroad, for interactive museum experiences.
The officials said that as the archaeological museums are facing new challenges, museums around the globe are transforming and striving to innovate and remain socially relevant.
“They should present collections to people in the context of the site in the most interesting manner and engage the visitors. Keeping this scenario in mind, the ASI has planned upgrade and refurbishment of its site museums,” said officials.
Multilingual brochures and high-quality documentation in digital format will also be prepared.
52 Number of site museums with ASI.
Major site museums
Fort St George Museum (Chennai).
Archaeological Museum (Purana Qila, Delhi).
1857 Residency Museum (Lucknow).
Major tech changes expected
Augmented reality (AR).
Virtual Reality (VR).
Internet of Things (IoT).