NEW DELHI: Acceding to a long-pending demand of the armed forces, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a Rs 500-crore project for building a national war memorial and a war museum near India Gate in memory of over 22,500 soldiers, who had sacrificed their lives for the country after Independence.
The project, to come up at Princess Park here, will be completed in five years. Sources said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given clear directions that the memorial should be a world-class one. The memorial will not only take into account martyrs of the various wars that India fought, but also soldiers who were killed in counter-insurgency and anti-terror operations in the North East, Jammu and Kashmir and in the battles fought in Siachen and Sri Lanka.
The names of the 22,500 soldiers will be written on the war memorial. “It has been decided that the project will be monitored by an empowered Steering Committee, chaired by Defence Secretary and assisted by a dedicated project management team, to ensure that the proposed project is completed within the scheduled time-frame,” a statement issued by the government said.
After commissioning, a management body will be formed for the maintenance of the memorial and the museum.
The steering committee will now work on issuing an international request for information (RFI) for both domestic and foreign firms to come forward with their ideas and designs for the monument.
“The memorial will promote a sense of patriotism in the minds of visitors and will award an opportunity to citizens of this vast nation to express their token sense of gratitude to the brave soldiers, who laid down their lives for the mother land,” the statement said.
According to officials, the museum will be largely underground and connected to the chhatri area via a subway. The Princess Park, is a 14-acre area north of India Gate, with barrack-type accommodation, built during World War II, which since 1947 has served as family accommodation for mid-level armed forces officers posted in the Service Headquarters in New Delhi.
The UPA Government in 2009 had constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Pranab Mukherjee to examine the demand for a national war memorial.