PANAJI: The Goa Government on Friday signed a tripartite agreement with Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and Helen Hamlyn Trust (HHT), U.K., for restoration of the 550-year-old Reis Magos Fortress in north Goa.

Lady Hamlyn, chairperson of the Helen Hamlyn Trust, is donating Rs. 3.5 crore for the conservation project. Lady Hamlyn, who lives in Goa, said it was her gift for Goa.

Simultaneously, a management committee headed by chairman of INTACH S.K. Misra has been announced which will decide ways and means to make conservation work self-sustaining, Chief Secretary J.P. Singh said.

INTACH is a Delhi-based non-governmental organisation involved in restoration work. Members of the managing committee include Director of Archives and Archaeology, cartoonist and INTACH Goa convener Mario Miranda, chairman of DCB Naseer Munjee, lawyer Francisco de Braganza, Shobita Punja on behalf of Helen Hamlyn Trust, and Dipti Salgaoncar of INTACH Goa, among others. The work is to be completed in two years. Expressing happiness over signing of the MoU, Chief Minister Pratapsing Rane said that this effort would go a long way in conservation of monuments. The Government, he said, would earmark Rs. 5 crore towards conservation work in Goa. Situated on the slope of a hill on the banks of the Mandovi in Bardez taluk of north Goa, the fortress was constructed by the Portuguese Viceroy Dom Afonso de Noronhain 1551 on the site on which existed the outpost of Adil Shah, and named it as Royal Fort in 1554. Before Liberation, it was used to house political prisoners, including freedom fighters, and after liberation it was converted into a sub-jail till 1993.

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