Title - South Western Railway prepares to translocate Tipu’s armoury

The South Western Railway has prepared a methodology for translocation of Tipu Sultan’s armoury building at Srirangapatna to a location identified jointly by the Department of Archaeology, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and SWR.

Archaeology Director Dr R Gopal approved the methodology submitted by K Ravichandran, Deputy Chief Engineer (Construction), SWR.

The method involves six phases; inserting steel load frames to drill holes in the structure at floor level, insertion of Unified Jacking System consisting of a number of jacks as per the design requirement, insertion of hold beams made of steel section and insertion of roll beams with Hilman Rollers and using Jacking System to move the armoury building as a whole in a single mass.

The distance of translocation is about 100 metres. The building will be moved in the same orientation as the present, in two mutually perpendicular directions for the requisite length so that the monument is not physically rotated. The method of slicing or cutting into blocks and reassembling at a new location is not permitted.

 “Heritage buildings require a greater degree of expertise to ensure they are properly preserved. Use of experienced moving companies is essential to ensure the building preservation is a success. SWR has entrusted the ‘Feasibility study on Relocation of Tipu Sultan’s Armoury building’ to Institution of Engineers (India). It has broadly outlined the relocation methodology based on the feasibility report and discussions with experienced structural movers,” an SWR official told Express. 

However, the actual methodology will be based on the detailed analysis and designs. It will be submitted to the Archaeology Department for final approval.  Due to the delay, the track doubling between Ramnagaram-Mysore is not completed. The track alignment passes over the armoury.