Privately Owned Museums in Odisha!

Museums are often govt owned with artifacts displayed scientifically for the general public to visit. Odisha had its 1st public museum at then Ravenshaw College (Cuttack) in 1932 & later on shifted to Bhubaneswar. There are some privately owned museums too in Odisha which have created their names in the field. Some of them are even registered as trusts & have their own display museum either at the founder’s residence or at a rented space. Have tried to mention some from them. Viewers are requested to give addition to the list!

Gajaraj Sangraha Kendra, Kaema (Jajpur), founded by Late Nrusingha Charan Sahu in 2004, now managed by his son Suryakant Sahu. The public museum has a huge collection of rare coins, manuscripts, fossil, adivasi artefacts, signature & signed letters of personalities, dedicated Buddha gallery etc. On Buddha Purnima Day, a grand public event is organised at the museum & personalities are felicitated

Odia Patrapatrika Sangrahalaya (Bhubaneswar) founded by Rajkishore Sarangi in 2004. Its major collections includes Odia language newspapers, Odia magazines, souvenirs etc. The current total count of collectibles is around 7000+ including 1850+ Odia newspapers.

Dasarathi Pattanaik Museum & Library at Udayapur (Nayagarh) is the most popular among all the private museums of Odisha. The credit goes to its founder Dasarathi Pattanaik aka Dasia Aja who is said to be the Father of the library movement in Odisha. The museum has 42+ sections for anthropology, archaeology, history, culture, natural history, mining & geology, art & craft, manuscripts, books etc. The.most remarkable thing is the collection of 5000+ rare palm leaf manuscripts.

Karunamayee Smaraki Sambadpatra Sangrahalaya, Khordha Town founded by Bimal Chandra Sarangi. The collection idea struck his mind 1981 & by 2014, he opened a museum on his late wife’s name for general public. Among all his collectibles, his fav are his newspaper collection totalling 5628+ (72 languages from 103 countries. His grandson Saswat is keen to take his legacy forward & it’s a good sign.

Dolagobinda Newspaper Museum & Research Centre, Bari (Jajpur) is founded by popular newspaper collector Shashanka Sekhar Dash aka Paperman . He has a vast collection of newspapers from across the world as per different titles, languages & periodicity. Till now he has managed to collect around 5502 newspaper titles with 96 languages from 168 countries. He is the recipient of the Limca Book of Records four times in 2012 (twice), 2019 & 2020 respectively for various categories under newspaper collection. He also holds the

Guinness World Records 2022 for Largest Newspaper collection under different titles. His son Saibrata is also an upcoming collector & is showing keen interest in creating name of his own in new category collection like paper cups.

Daspalla Educational Museum (Saikhika Sangrahalaya), Daspalla Town (Nayagarh) founded by Anil Kumar Sahu. His passion for matchbox collection during childhood culminated into a full fledged museum with a rare collection of various artefacts in later stage.

Singhi Library & Museum at Kalpana Square (Bhubaneswar) is worth a visit for all hobbyists & museum enthusiasts. Opened for general public in 2018, the museum has segments for books & collectibles. The founder, Pratap Singh Singhi, being an avid collector once decided to make his collection public by opening a fully sir conditioned public museum for general.oubkic & visit, get inspired & initiate hobby as a habit esp among school going kids. The collection displayed includes philately, numismatic, phillumeny, notaphily, princely state instruments & artefacts etc.

Gopinath Heritage Museum of Brass & Bell Metal Crafts, Jagamara (Bhubaneswar)

Ghanashyam Patnaik-Pindika Srichandan Museum & Library, Bolagarh (Khordha) founded by Akshaya Pattanayak in 1970. It’s the 1st privately owned Engineering Museum in Odisha. Akshaya sir is known for his huge collection of rare radios, around 700+ with 530 diff models/brands.

The other private museums in Odisha with a specific name includes –

a) Lokanatha Sangrahalaya O Pathagara at Madanpur (Baleswar) founded by Bikas Kumar Satpathy,

b) Koshali Sangrahalaya, Bolangir, founded by Nimain Panigrahi

c) Sukabhoi Sangrahalaya, Kalapathar (Cuttack)

d) Jagannatha Pathagar, Chhatia (Jajpur) founded by Subrata Sendha

e) Netaji Sangrahalaya, Kendrapara founded by Md Mushtaque

f) Maa Tarini Sangrahalaya, Keonjhar, founded by Pradeep Rout

g) Pancha Tulasi Pathagar, Nayagarh Town, founded by Rasabihari Khatei

h) Jagannath Sangrahalaya, Nuagson (Nayagarh) founded by Sanjay Sahoo

i) Gopal Das’s museum at Khordha Town

i) Maheswari Malati Library, Astarang (Puri) founded by Mayadhar Swain

j) Late lndramani Sahoo’s Gramophone Record Museum at Ranihat, Cuttack

Museums run on footfalls and appreciation from visitors. But most of the museums, be it govt owned or privately operated trusts have the issue of low visits due to various reasons. Good publicity in social media & mobilising school authorities to organise excursion or study tour visits to various museums can work in two ways – get back footfalls & encourage collection habits.

(The private museums mentioned here are those which are trust managed or at least have a museum name. Readers here are requested to mention in comments the further private museums, like above, that they know in order to bring those into limelight)