In pandemic grip for five months, Amritsar’s war memorial bleeds
AMRITSAR: Akin to other tourist establishments in the state, the coronavirus pandemic has also taken a toll on Punjab State War Heroes’ Memorial and Museum, which has been lying shut since March.
According to a rough estimate, the state-of-the-art memorial has been suffering a loss of around ₹20 lakh per month ever since the lockdown was imposed here.
The memorial staff is being paid ₹4 lakh salary per month, besides monthly electricity bills of ₹3-7 lakh. Ever since its temporary closure, the memorial has made no money through tickets, which used to be around ₹10 lakh per month. Moreover, nearly ₹1 lakh is spent on its monthly maintenance.
“Though the memorial is closed for the last five months, we have not laid off any of our staff members. We are managing everything with the reserved funds,” said Col (retd) HP Singh, project director of the memorial, which is spread over seven acres of land opposite India Gate on GT Road here. He said it was still unclear that when the memorial would be opened as till now they have not received any instruction from the government.
The memorial, which was inaugurated in October 2016, had already been struggling to attract visitors, despite being in Amritsar, a city that used to see a footfall of 50,000 tourists on weekdays and around one lakh on the weekends before the pandemic. Against the projected average daily footfall of around 5,000, the memorial used to draw only 200 visitors on weekdays and 500-600 on the weekends till its closure during the lockdown.
The ₹150-crore project covers the heroism and sacrifices in Punjab from the days of Alexander to Kargil War. It also covers the origins of Miri Piri, which evolved at the time of the sixth Sikh master Guru Hargobind Singh.
There are nine galleries in the memorial. Construction work on its fourth gallery, which will depict the battle of Saragarhi, Jallianwala Bagh massacre, and battles in World
War I and II, is suspended due to the unavailability of funds. “We are waiting for around ₹1 crore funds from the government to complete the fourth gallery,” the colonel said.
Other galleries are dedicated to information about the ancient times, including the era of Guru Hargobind Singh till the rise of the Sikh empire, the Sikh empire and the Anglosikh Wars, Jammu and Kashmir operations (1947-48), Indochina War (1962), Indo-pak War (1965-1971) etc.
For a year now, the memorial authorities have been waiting for the sanction of ₹60 lakh to inscribe names of 4,000 martyred soldiers, including 54 of Punjab, who have been missing since the first Indo-pak War (1947-48), on the boundary walls of fountains inside the memorial.