ARAKU (VISAKHAPATNAM DISTRICT): The famed Araku Tribal Museum, which is celebrating its two decades of existence, is being given a facelift with addition of several new attractions.
Located near the RTC complex here, the eco-friendly museum building constructed with mud and metal showcases the unique lifestyle of tribal people of Eastern Ghats, their socio-economic conditions and cultures and rituals.
The museum attracts on an average 800 visitors a day with weekends and holidays witnessing 2,000 or so. The museum won appreciation from tourists for effectively displaying various traits and traditions of tribal people, their intricate jewellery, exquisite clothing, cooking with utensils and folk dance forms like dhimsa.
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Spread over eight acres, the museum also has several crafts stalls and an outlet to serve the highly popular Girijan coffee produced in the hilly tracts with organic manure. The coffee sold by Girijan Cooperative Corporation is recognised in several countries for its unique aroma and flavour.
Around Rs.30 lakh is being spent on new facilities. “We are expecting further increase in footfall once the new facilities are completed in a few months,” Museum Curator N. Muralikrishna Prasad has told The Hindu.
Work on a miniature park displaying tourist spots like Borra Guhalu, Chaparai and Katiki waterfalls is completed. A model of terrace cultivation (also called step cultivation), which is practised by tribal people on the hill slopes using perennial hill streams is getting ready.
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Children park with several play items and an agriculture block showing implements used by tribal with a separate division to show how millets are grown have already been opened. The renovated jewellery block to showcase the ornaments with intricate designs is also ready for opening.
Two big and small resting pagodas created sometime ago have become a big draw for tourists seeking relaxation for sometime in nature’s lap. The boating club in the lake developed on the museum complex attracts a large number of tourists. Arrow shooting along with cycling track was introduced a year ago.
A model to exhibit tribal panchayat system (known as muthadar in local parlance) followed during the British rule to issue pattas and settle land disputes is also being developed.
“With the addition of new facilities, the footfall will certainly increase manifold,” Bantu Kamesh, says a post-graduate, who runs a crafts shop.