Museum for Itti Achuthan a far cry

ALAPPUZHA: The long wait of the Hortus Malabaricus Trust for Itti Achuthan Memorial Ayurvedic Museum at Kadakkarappally near Cherthala here remains fruitless though the successive governments had allotted funds. Itti Achuthan was an Ayurvedic scholar and author of the book Keralaramam, who had helped Hendrik van Rheede, former governor of Dutch Malabar, to compile the botanical classic of the 17th century.

He was born at Kadakkarappally. In 2001 the then Left government had allocated Rs 10 lakh for setting up what is considered to be the first Ayurvedic museum in the country. The UDF government that succeeded hiked the fund to 15 lakh. Oommen Chandy raised it further to Rs 50 lakh in his last Budget which was missing in Thomas Isaac’s revised budget.

“However, later, after our intervention, Mr Isaac retained it," Trust secretary A.N. Chidambaran said. “The Trust had identified his birthplace and 92 cents of land. A private party currently owns the place. Because of that, the archaeological department has not yet come forward to take it over. As a result of repeated queries, they made many promises. But, till date, all went in vain.”

“If the government had acquired the land earlier, we could have approached the Dutch government for financial assistance. On our request its representative had attended our function in Kozhikode in 2010,” he added. Meanwhile, the trust is still pinning hope on local legislator and civil supplies minister P. Thilothaman to intervene.