Astronomy group races against time to vacate Junta House

Panaji: The ambitious plan of the Association of Friends of Astronomy (AFA) to establish Goa’s first solar energy museum has come to a sudden halt after the association was directed to vacate its premises at Junta House.

It is now hoping for chief minister Pramod Sawant’s intervention to secure an alternative space and revive its stalled plans.Citing safety concerns over the dilapidated state of the structure, the North Goa collectorate ordered the occupants of Junta House, which includes AFA, commercial establishments, and govt offices, to vacate the building weeks ago. The eviction notice struck the AFA mid-stride — just as it was preparing to launch an ambitious solar energy museum in collaboration with the Goa Energy Development Agency (Geda).

The museum, intended for the open terrace, was to celebrate the marriage of astronomy and solar science.

Additionally, the AFA earmarked funds in this fiscal year to acquire a Rs 5 lakh telescope, an advanced instrument meant to elevate their stargazing facilities.“We need to have the observatory in Panaji itself,” said AFA president Satish Nayak, his voice tinged with a mix of resignation and hope.The terrace at the crumbling Junta House in Panaji has, for over four decades, offered a window into the stars when Percival Noronha, along with Jayant Narlikar, established AFA in Feb 1982.

It was then chief minister Pratapsingh Rane who offered the vacant terrace of what was then Goa’s tallest govt building — Junta House — to house the public astronomical observatory.Over the years, the AFA acquired more space within the building, and today, it has 556sqm wherein it has accommodated an open-air observatory, a telescope dome, an 80-seater AC auditorium, an astronomy mini-museum, tinkering and astrophotography labs, a computer lab, the Aryabhatta library, a telescope gallery, and administrative and utility areas.“It took 37 years of struggle for the association to achieve this,” said Nayak.AFA, which has already overstayed the one-month deadline, now finds itself in bureaucratic limbo. The irony is cruel — decades of institutional labour now risk being undone. “We cannot shift anywhere immediately since some of the sites we have seen in Panaji are under construction and will be complete only in another two years. Even if we find an ideal place now, the Junta House lift is not working for us to carefully shift valuable telescopes and other instruments using the stairs,” he said.AFA is therefore seeking an urgent audience with Sawant, before the monsoon assembly session, in a last-ditch effort to preserve what remains of its legacy.“We have a certain type of establishment where the dome of the observatory needs to be accommodated. The floor, the building, the landscape — all of it matters. Junta House was a premium space in the city. We are hoping that govt is able to give us some space in Altinho, where the planetarium can be established in a full-fledged manner,” Nayak said.