Pune Municipal Corporation to promote sky gazing among citizens

Pune: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) built a planetarium at the E-Learning School in Sahakar Nagar for students to learn about planets and stars in an easy manner. Rs 2 crore was spent on the project. However, it shut down later in the absence of repair and maintenance.

Now, the PMC has decided to reopen it after four years.

A proposal to appoint an agency for the purpose was approved in a Standing Committee meeting. Rs 61,65,500 will be spent for five years. The functioning of the planetarium is special. It runs on software developed by Fulldome Pro company. Since the civic body failed to renew the software, it remained closed.

There was a demand to reopen the facility after the pandemic period. The PMC contacted the company again and the agency was given the responsibility of checking the software and hardware and other machinery. It will also conduct repairs and redesign the programme. The future maintenance and repair will also be done by the firm concerned.

The agency will design 27 programmes in Marathi, Hindi and English for the planetarium. The company will be paid Rs 33 lakh for the first year to reopen the facility. Rs 6.96 lakh will be paid per year for the next four years. The PMC plans to reopen it in the summer holidays. Senior officials from the civic body confirmed the details.