New Delhi: Around 70 per cent of the antiquities preserved at the Central Antiquity Collection at Purana Qila for decades have now been relocated to the Red Fort—and some of them will eventually be available for public display, although a timeline is yet to be decided.
“The CAC houses around 3 lakh valuable antiquities from across the country. We have successfully relocated 70 percent of them to their new home at Red Fort,” Yadubir Singh Rawat, director general at ASI, told ThePrint.
Rawat said citizens have the right to see the antiquities and that he had a clear “vision” for them.
“No longer will these antiquities be packed in boxes and left gathering dust. We have a collection from across India and that should be displayed,” he added.
The antiquities have been housed at Purana Qila since 1974. The Central Antiquity Collection was created in 1910, mainly to house antiquities from Sir Aurel Stein’s Central Asian Expedition from 1906 to 1916. It was initially established at the ASI office, and later shifted to the Safdarjung Tomb complex in 1958.
This is the fourth time in over a hundred years that the antiquities from the CAC have been shifted. Their new home will be the British Barracks at Red Fort—a space that was earlier with the National Museum. In February 2025, Rawat instructed the Antiquity section of the ASI to take over the barracks from the National Museum.
“Purana Qila is no longer safe for this large valuable collection of ASI. There is a dampness there. That’s why we are shifting it to the new place now,” said Rawat.
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A precious collection
The reserve collection includes valuable seals and pottery from Balochistan, as well as artefacts from Harappan, Mohenjo-Daro, Lothal, and Hastinapur.
The movement of antiquities is being managed by ASI’s Delhi circle.
“During the movement, we are taking care of the safety of the antiquities and the process is under our monitoring. Currently, only those artefacts that have been packed were moved to Red Fort,” said RK Patel, superintending archaeologist of ASI’s Delhi circle.
Patel said Red Fort is a safer and more secure zone, with security managed by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
Two archaeological officials deployed at Purana Qila are overseeing the movement, Patel said.
“We are using only those persons who have been deployed there from the start of this process, whether they are labourers or monument officials,” he said.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) flagged the condition of antiquities at Purana Qila in a 2013 report.
“CAC is a rich repository of explored and excavated pottery and antiquities collected from various parts of the country. We noted that the acquisition, documentation, storage conditions, physical verification and security of antiquities of CAC was grossly inadequate,” read the CAG report.
The CAG noted that there was no facility of maintaining an air-conditioned environment for the antiquities. “We noticed problems of peeling plasters, dampness and seepage aggravating the deterioration of artifacts stored in various cells of Purana Qila, Delhi,” it reads.
In its 2022 report, CAG noted that the status of CAC’s antiquities could not be verified as no physical verification had been conducted after 2006. It added that despite housing a large collection of rare antiquities, the CAC was managed by a single assistant archaeologist, and CCTV cameras and other security equipment had not been installed there.
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A new museum at Red Fort
ASI is planning a museum at Red Fort where valuable and unique artefacts from the CAC collection will be displayed in the near future.
Rawat, who worked at the Antiquity collection early in his career at ASI, said the value of what is stored there is immense. The CAC, he noted, has all collections from sites excavated after 1947, as well as those from Harappan sites excavated before Independence.
In the 1980s, research scholars were able to access the antiquities, Rawat said. But over the years, ASI restricted access due to concerns over preservation — the Purana Qila building is in a dilapidated condition, with broken plaster and damaged roofs.
“Once the whole lot is moved to Red Fort, we will select some antiquities for display and open our collections for research scholars,” said Rawat.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)