Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) Commissioner Arvind Kumar on Tuesday said that the department will renovate the Nizamia Observatory.
The decision comes after Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister KT Rama Rao asked Kumar to take action after a few Twitter users highlighted the issue.
Nizamia Observatory, located in Begumpet was established in 1901 by Nizam VI Mahboob Ali Khan. It was founded by Nawab Zafar Yar Jung Bahadur, a rich nobleman and an amateur astronomer in Hyderabad in 1901 when he bought a 6-inch telescope from England. He installed it in Phisal Banda Palace, Hyderabad (now Deccan Medical College and Owaisi Hospital). He requested that it be called Nizamia Observatory after the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Mahboob Ali Khan.
Bahadur died in 1907 and earlier he requested the Nizam’s government take over the observatory. In accordance with his wishes, the administration of the observatory was taken over by the Finance Department of the Nizam’s government in 1908.
In the mid-1950s, owing to the expansion of Hyderabad city and light pollution, a new site was scouted for the observatory. Dr KD Abhayankar selected the current 200-acre site at Rangapur village.
The new observatory was called the Japal-Rangapur Nizamia Observatory. It became operational in 1968–69. It was subsequently used to observe the 1980 solar eclipse and the comets Halley and Shoemaker-Levy.
