KARACHI, Aug 20: Less than one per cent of the population of the city visits the National Museum of Pakistan in a year.

The director of the National Museum, Mohammad Mehrban, told Dawn that mostly students from schools and colleges visited the museum. He added that other than students few people dropped by to see ongoing exhibitions.

The National Museum of Pakistan was first set up in 1951 in the historic building of Frere Hall, rented from the defunct Karachi Municipal Corporation. It was inaugurated by the then governor-general, Khawaja Nazimuddin. In 1970, the museum was moved to its present location on the Burnes Garden where it was opened by the then president, Mohammad Yahya Khan.

Museum officials said that government allocation, which totalled Rs9.3 million, was used up by salaries of the staff, utility bills and miscellaneous expenses.

They added that the exhibition organized at the museum for some special guests had failed to generate funds.

A special exhibition of rare artefacts was organized jointly by a non-governmental organization and the archeology department at the National Museum of Pakistan late last year for well-heeled guests in the hope of receiving some funds from them.

Some of the artefacts on display were steatite bust of King Priest (Moenjodaro, 2500-1500 BC), brass container (914 AH), bronze door knockers (Al-Mansurah, 8th-13th century), and rare manuscripts, etc.

They said the exhibition had been arranged on the understanding that the guests would give the museum funds. Instead, the guests had enjoyed the exhibition and gone away, they said.

The museum officials said that despite the fact that the museum had been in existence for the past 52 years, no detailed brochure, explaining the importance of artefacts on display and their exact location, had been compiled.

The ground floor of the museum houses a foyer for temporary exhibitions, such as the one on the “object of the month” which has been continuing since 1985. It also has an auditorium, committee room, conservation laboratories and museum reserves.

The left wing of the museum on the first floor has galleries called “Pre- and Proto-Historic” and “Hindu-Buddhist”. The right wing of the museum on the first floor houses galleries containing objects pertaining to Islamic art, coins, the freedom movement of the subcontinent, and ethnological objects.

The museum officials said that a paucity of funds had kept them from completing the computerization process. “The computers at the museum have 286 microprocessors. On such outdated computers, we cannot run compact discs and other new equipment,” they said.

They said that despite financial constraints they kept organizing exhibitions according to themes announced by the government.

“This Aug 14, we are going to start an exhibition on Fatima Jinnah, because the year has been declared by the Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah year by the government,” they said.

The museum officials said the administrative control of the Wazir Mansion museum and the Quaid-i-Azam House Museum on Sharea Faisal had been placed under the National Museum of Pakistan. They added that previously these museums had been governed by the Hyderabad circle of the archaeology department.