NEW DELHI: The Centre is ready to allocate land and funds to the trust to be set up to construct the memorial for former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Sources said the government would give Rs 25 lakh to the trust to be formed by Singh’s family.
Sources said the government has thrice reminded the family, but the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), the nodal agency for land allotment, is still awaiting a response from them.
Singh passed away last December. Following the demand by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, the government offered two adjoining plots at the Rashtriya Smriti complex for his memorial. The ministry also carried out groundwork to facilitate its construction.
This newspaper also reported that the architect of the Central Public Work Department (CWPD) inspected the two pieces of land — measuring about 10,000 square feet — and later discussed the memorial’s design and other modalities.
The selected sites are close to the memorials of former presidents and prime ministers such as Giani Zail Singh, Shankar Dayal Sharma, Chandra Shekhar, IK Gujaral, and PV Narasimha Rao.
According to government officials, the CPWD will carry out the construction, and the trust will bear the expenses. The proposed memorial’s cenotaph would be identical to those already existing on the campus.
Each memorial is a square piece of land surrounded by about two-feet-high sandstone-latticed screens with a 5X5 black granite platform in the centre. This is the standard design for memorials at the Rashtriya Smriti complex.
The only exception is Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Samadhi. It comprises nine square black polished granite solid stone blocks, capped with a ‘diya’ in the Centre. The blocks are placed in a circular lotus-shaped pattern and enclosed by nine bas-relief walls, which have inscriptions of the prose or poetry of Vajpayee.
Memorial plots at Rashtriya Smriti Sthal
Dr Manmohan Singh passed away last December. Following the demand by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, the government offered two adjoining plots at the Rashtriya Smriti complex for his memorial. The ministry has also carried out the groundwork to facilitate the construction of the memorial.