Proposed museum at Teen Murti to keep changing exhibits and include all PMS
NEWDELHI:AROUND half the exhibits at the Museum on Prime Ministers of India, to be built on the sprawling Teen Murti Estate in the heart of the national capital, will keep changing so as to accommodate more aspects of all PMS, Hindustan Times learns .
On Wednesday, at the first workshop on the planned museum, featuring experts from different domains, the discussion veered around to the design of the museum. It was decided then that half the museum would be permanent and the other half flexible.
Teen Murti Estate, the residence of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, houses the Nehru Memorial Museuem and Library(nmml), which has been asked to build the new museum.
The Congress had opposed the building of the museum and former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh even wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing concern on the government’s move to change the nature and character of NMML.
Construction of the museum is expected to begin in the next two months. As a forerunner to the opening of the museum, an exhibition, Shakti Punj Atal, on former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, opened on December 24, a day before his birth anniversary. The exhibition will be on until January 31.
NMML has asked stakeholders including the public to contribute any exhibits (photos, videos, handwritten notes,and souvenirs related to the former PMS) for the new museum. One acre of NMML’S 25 acre campus has been allocated to the new museum, which has been granted a budget of around ~270 crore. NMML director Shakti Sinha said that the basic groundwork for the museum, which includes collecting the speeches and the video recordings of the prime ministers, was almost complete.
“Our researchers have made the final drafts of the life history of different prime ministers,” he said . “The main objective behind this museum is to tell our people about the richness of Indian democracy and how the prime ministers have been a symbol of Indian democracy. We will strive to give all possible reflections and information on all the prime ministers.” “We will endeavour to use the best of technology. The idea is to make it more virtual and interactive. The museum will not just be a platform for exhibitions but will also be an academic centre where scholars will be able to get access to information on all prime ministers,” he said.