NEW DELHI: Two adjoining sites measuring about 2,000 sq ft each within the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal in the Capital await approval from former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s family to house his memorial. They are yet to pick one.
After the visit of senior officials of the ministry of housing and urban affairs, the staff on Wednesday cleaned up the spots and pruned the grass there. According to the officials, an estimate of construction has been prepared and the allotment formalities will be initiated once they get word from Singh’s family.
Spread over about 45 acres, the Rashtriya Smriti Sthal complex is sandwiched between Ring Road and Salimgarh bypass along the Yamuna bank.
The two sites are next to the memorial of P V Narasimha Rao. They are surrounded by paved pathways and flanked by the memorials of former presidents and prime ministers Zail Singh, Shankar Dayal Sharma, R Venkataraman, K R Narayanan, Chandra Shekhar and I K Gujral. The Sthal also has Sadaiv Atal, a memorial park where former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was cremated.
The staff posted at the Sthal was expecting a visit by Singh’s family on Friday. However, no information was available about the visit till late evening.
This newspaper had on Thursday reported that the government had decided to allocate land to a trust to be set up for the construction and maintenance of Singh’s memorial after receiving approval from his family.
“The trust to be set up in Manmohan Singh’s name will build the memorial. The response of the family is awaited. The allotment formalities can only be initiated after the constitution of the trust. It may take about a week. This has been the practice. In the case of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a trust in his name had already existed. A senior official of the ministry was on Thursday entrusted with the task to inform the family about the possible location of Singh memorial,” said officials.
The Congress veteran passed away on December 26 and his funeral took place three days later at Nigambodh Ghat. After Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge sought space for a memorial, the Union Cabinet set the ball rolling. In 2013, the then government had resolved not to allow separate memorials for dignitaries near Rajghat because of scarcity of space.