The wait for military memorial gets longer

The prolonged wait for the National Military Memorial (NMM) at the Indira Gandhi Musical Fountain Park, just got longer by another six months.

The monument to depict the valour and sacrifice of heroes of the Indian Armed Forces was proposed four years ago, but the wait for its completion continues. Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) Superintending Engineer K Manjappa told Deccan Herald that 90 per cent of the construction work of the park was completed, but the progress on the stone monolith or ‘Veeragallu’ was relatively slow, with over 50 per cent of the work still pending.

He said that the process of finalising tenders for the transport of the stone monolith had already started. If everything goes according to plan, the memorial would be thrown open to the public in six months.

The NMM was conceptualised in 2008 and the foundation stone was laid by then Governor Rameshwar Thakur in February 2009. The BDA was entrusted with the responsibility of constructing the memorial and work was expected to be completed in 15 months.

Thereafter, work on the memorial stopped, owing to opposition from various environmental groups over its location and the felling of trees for its construction. In June 2010, work resumed with the approval of the High Court. 

Since then, the date of inauguration has been postponed over six times. The memorial was originally scheduled to open on Republic Day of 2011; it was later postponed to Vijay Diwas and again postponed to Independence Day that year. The inauguration date followed a similar trail of delays in 2012.