Kolkata :

Historians have often linked the archaeological site at Chandraketugarh with Alexandar and the Greco-Roman maritime trade. But on ground zero, nothing much has been done till date to preserve the site with a 250-year-old history. Prodded by Barasat’s Trinamool MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, things have finally started moving in the right direction. Fianlly, Chandraketugarh has started getting its due.

A museum has been readied to preserve artefacts that have found at Chandraketugarh. Though the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) protects the site officially, there is no sign of “protection” anywhere apart from two signboards that stand at two ends of the mound. The half-excavated matrix lies exposed to daily loot and other ravages.

In 2009, after she became an MP, Dastidar was approached by local school and college teachers who had been trying to raise awareness over the site on their own. “They requested me to visit the site and see how soon everything will get lost. I was aghast at what I saw. ASI had done some piecemeal job and had left the site open and unattended. Since then, I have raised the issue in Parliament and approached the culture ministry to which the ASI reports. When nothing happened, I approached the West Bengal Heritage Commission, but unfortunately I was unable to stir up the imagination of the chairperson,” Dastidar said.

Finally, in August 2016, Dastidar wrote to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, seeking her intervention. “I told her clearly that unless we are able to set up a site office and a museum, the state will lose its most ancient archaeological site,” Dastidar added. Within days, the CM sent an investigation team — comprising the DM, bureaucrats and historians — that assessed the site, interacted with local activist groups and submitted a report that confirmed its antiquity.

Two TOI reports, one dealing with the deplorable state of things and another of a new research by IIT-Kharagpur experts trying to establish the antiquity of Chandraketugarh to Sandrocottus mentioned by Megasthenes, were also cited.

“Finally, at the CM’s insistence, we have been able to set up the museum and the site office, which will start functioning within a month. Local people who have been zealously guarding the excavated artefacts have agreed to donate them to the museum,” Dastidar said, adding that she has been able to recover artefacts worth a few hundred crores.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Kolkata News / TNN / February 21st, 2017