Rs 20m plan for Jallianwala Bagh memorial still on paper

Even as the country is celebrating the 50th year of its Independence, one of the nation's most revered monuments of martyrdom, the Jallianwala Bagh, has fallen victim to government apathy.

The conceptual plan drawn up by the federal government a couple of years ago for turning the Jallianwala Bagh monument into a national memorial has remained on paper.

The plan was announced on April 13, 1994, when a host of federal and state leaders had gathered at Amritsar, Punjab, for observing the 75th anniversary of the brutal massacre of 1919 which left 379 people dead and hundreds wounded.

A committee under the chairmanship of then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao was formed to give a final shape to the beautification plan and its implementation by the Human Resource Development Ministry.

A series of meetings were held both at Amritsar and New Delhi and architects and planners were consulted but beyond holding talks, no concrete steps were taken to materialise the project, Jallianwala Bagh Memorial Trust Chairman S K Mukherji claimed.

Not a penny out of the Rs 20 million promised by the then prime minister was given to the ministry for starting the project.

Mukherji, also a member of the conceptual plan committee, said the project included renovating the khooni (murderous) well from where 120 bodies were fished out after Brigadier-General R E H Dyer ordered the firing on peaceful demonstrators demanding freedom from colonial rule on the occasion of the Baisakhi festival.

Landscaping and beautification of the Jallianwala Bagh Complex was also to be undertaken with provisions for installation of sodium and coloured lights.

The project also included plans for expansion of the martyrs' gallery and inscribing the names of all those who died in the massacre on a stone to be installed near the flame of liberty memorial. There were proposals to have light and sound shows inside the complex, for which services of leading artists were to be sought.

The Punjab government, besides offering an annual grant of a few thousand rupees, had not paid much attention to the memorial, Mukherji said. The amount given by the state government was just sufficient to carry out a few minor repairs here and there, he said.

With no financial support forthcoming, members of the Jallianwala Bagh Trust at times even had to spend from their own pockets for applying a fresh coat of paint on the boundary walls of the memorial, he added.

UNI