varanasi a virtual museum is in the offing in the prime minister narendra modis kashi to enable people for online viewing of the citys antiquities and art objects the virtual museum is likely to come up at the archaeological survey of india asi protected man mahal observatory a beautiful example of mughalrajput architecture with stone balconied windows and painted ceiling on the bank of gangaduring his visit to the city on november 19 the union minister of state for tourism and culture independent charge mahesh sharma had also visited the man mahal observatory and asked to start a virtual museum to showcase the monuments and culture of the city said the superintending archaeologist of sarnath circle of asi neeraj kumar sinha adding that the asi director general usha sharma and secretary union ministry of culture raghvendra singh arrived here on wednesday to make a spot visit for this purposeduring their twoday stay they will visit the archaeological sites and museum at sarnath and man mahal observatory at ganga ghat to take stock of the condition and facilities sinha told toi adding that the man mahal observatory is the best suitable place for the proposed virtual museumaccording to asi records the palace was built by man singh the raja of amber and a celebrated general of the great mughal emperor akbar in around 1600ad while the observatory was added to it around 1737 ad by sawai jai singh ii 16861745 ad who himself was a great astronomer the founder of jaipur city and a descendant of raja man singh the ministry of culture has embarked upon an ambitious project of the digitization of the collections of museums to bring these collections closer to the public by making them available for online viewing according to the ministry records through the technical expertise of pune based centre for development of advanced computing cdac and the art institute of chicago the ministry got standardized a software jatan for implementation of the project the jatan virtual museum builder software with 3 dimensional2 dimensional photography for documentation and digitization of antiquities has been designed with a vision to enable museums across the nation to digitize their collection and curate online galleries for public viewingin the first phase of digitization project the jatan software has been implemented in 10 selected museums including national museum new delhi indian museum kolkata victoria memorial hall kolkata national gallery of modern art new delhi national gallery of modern art mumbai national gallery of modern art bengaluru allahabad museum salar jung museum hyderabad nagarjunakonda museum and goa museum