After Shah request, police memorial now a Delhi tourist spot
THE NPM PAYS HOMAGE TO 34,844 POLICE PERSONNEL FROM ALL CENTRAL AND STATE FORCES WHO DIED IN THE LINE OF DUTY
New Delhi The National Police Memorial (NPM) in Chanakyapuri is the latest entrant into the Delhi government’s list of tourist places in the national Capital. The move comes after Union home minister, Amit Shah, wrote to chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, asking the Delhi government to include and promote the memorial as a tourist spot.
Inaugurated on October 21, 2018, the NPM commemorates 34,844 police personnel from all central and state police forces in India who died in the line of duty, since the nation’s independence in 1947. The 6.12-acre memorial also includes a police museum, a first in India, which traces the origin and transformation of policing from the pre-historic times, the Mughal era, the British rule and to the post-independence period.
The government on Wednesday not only added the NPM to its Delhi tourism website as a tourist place, but is also set to include the spot on the routes designed for its Hop On-hop Off (Hoho) buses.“the tourism department is also working on providing guided tours to the memorial as it does for other tourist spots in Delhi. It is almost going to be a year since it was opened. However, the footfall has still not picked up. So, we are also in talks with schools to spread awareness about the memorial,” a senior official of the tourism department s ai d. To promote t he recently opened tourist spot, the Delhi government will also direct schools and colleges to send students to the NPM as part of their study tours and excursions. In a letter to Kejriwal on July 26, Union home minister Amit Shah wrote, “I request you to put the National Police Memorial in the Delhi government’s official tourism website to promote the contributions of the police in service to the nation. Apart from this, the government should also consider conducting tours for school children to the police memorial to instil in them a feeling of patriotism.”
Prior to this, on November 12, 2018, Delhi Police commissioner, Amulya Patnaik, had also written to the then Delhi chief secretary, Anshu Prakash, urging the government to organise the visit of at least one school every day.
Patnaik said, “In addition, I would also request you to consider including the memorial, which is near the Nehru Planetarium and Teen Murti Bhawan, as a regular tourist destination for the various tourist buses/ Hoho services being run by the DTTDC and the tourism department of Delhi...the memorial, with its imposing central sculpture, museum and wall of honour, will indeed be a memorable place of visit for both domestic and international tourists.”