War heroes’ memorial battles fund crunch

GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, September 23

A fund crunch has hit work on galleries at the Punjab State War Heroes’ Memorial-cum-Museum.

There are nine galleries in the museum and right now, tourists have access to only six. After skipping numerous deadlines, the work on the most sought after portion- the eighth gallery dedicated to 1999 Kargil War and fourth gallery depicting World War I, the Battle of Saragarhi and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre - is still nowhere near completion.

The showcasing of how the “Tiger Hill” with its razor sharp peak was captured and incomplete mannequins of Capt Manoj Kumar Pandey and Capt Vikram Batra, who used a one liner “Yeh Dil Mange More” speak volumes about the apathy of the government.

Moreover, there is no indication whether the ninth gallery would be constructed or not? Christened as “Out of area operations, proxy war and motivation”, the ninth gallery was planned to motivate youngsters to join the Indian Armed Forces. It was to spell out details of joining conditions, pay, perks, privileges etc.

The memorial was inaugurated in 2016 by the SAD-BJP regime at a cost of around Rs 143 crore.

However, with the change of guard in the state, the work has come to a standstill. It has been learnt that Capt Amarinder Singh-led state government had lately sanctioned Rs 8 crore, but it is way short of Rs 26 crore, which is required to complete pending work.

Col (retd) HP Singh, Project Director, told that the reason for delay was lack of funds. Apart from this, the idea of fixing steel plates with names of martyrs and missing soldiers etched on them could not materialise for want of funds.

It was proposed to have the names of 4,000 martyred soldiers belonging to Punjab, along with the names of 54 missing Punjabi soldiers since first Indo-Pak war (1947-48). The sample plate is lying in one corner of the gallery.

“Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh had himself got approved the design of special plates. We have been corresponding with the Finance Department, but have received no reply. We were lucky that former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal spared a corpus of Rs10 crore. We have fixed this amount and it helps us to run the administrative affairs and for maintenance,” said Col HP Singh (retd).

The Tourist Department has made some efforts to market the project. It charges Rs100 per head whereas 50 per cent discount is offered to school children and defence personnel.

“We collect between Rs5-6 lakh per month through tickets. The collection can be more, if the department or local administration markets the project properly,” he said.

Sorry state of affairs

• Incomplete mannequins of Capt Manoj Kumar Pandey and Capt Vikram Batra, speak volumes about the apathy of the government
• There is no indication whether the ninth gallery planned to motivate youth to join Armed Forces would be constructed