Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan Wednesday said a special committee would be set up to oversee work on the proposed memorial for Babasaheb Ambedkar, "father" of the Indian Constitution, at Dadar in central Mumbai.
Chavan's announcement here came hours after the central government cleared the decks for transfer of 12.5 acres of land of the India United Mills, popularly known as Indu Mills, for building the Ambedkar memorial.
"A separate authority shall be set up for the purpose of the memorial. A renowned architect will be appointed as a consultant to prepare the blueprint for the monument," Chavan told mediapersons.
"The state government will try and complete the process as fast as possible and also bear the complete expenses on the construction of the memorial," Chavan assured.
While refusing to divulge the expenditure estimates on the project or a time-frame, Chavan added that the special authority would comprise seven members, including four representatives of the central government.
However, he said the Ambedkar memorial could be modelled on the lines of Mahatma Gandhi's 'samadhi' at Rajghat in New Delhi.
Chavan, who was in New Delhi Dec 3 and 4 with the single-point agenda of getting the memorial land cleared, said there was no question of claiming credit in the matter. "It was a collective effort by all parties concerned," he said.
He added that several laws had to be amended to effect the land transfer so that there would not be any legal hurdles, besides a bill which would be passed in parliament for transferring the National Textiles Corporation Ltd-owned mill-land to the state government for the memorial project.
According to Chavan, while securing environment clearance, the state government has assured that there would be no commercial activity on the Indu Mills land, which would henceforth be under the care of the Maharashtra authorities.