India PMs museum to be ready in 1 year

The Prime Ministers of India museum on the Teen Murti Estate premises will be completed in a year and will cover the works done by PM Narendra Modi in his tenure, Union minister Mahesh Sharma said on Monday.

The Union minister of culture on Monday laid the foundation stone for the museum to be constructed at a cost of Rs 271 crore.

The 10,975.36 sqm museum will showcase the life and works of all prime ministers of India. It will have a basement, ground floor and first floor with galleries at all three levels.

"Whatever history we have till the museum is completed will be included in the museum. It will be completed in a year," Sharma said.

Asked if the museum, dedicated to all prime ministers, will cover the works of Modi done in his tenure, the minister said, "Yes, absolutely."

The Centre has gone ahead with its plan even as former prime minister Manmohan Singh last month wrote to his successor Modi, expressing concern over the government's move to change the "nature and character" of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML).

Urging Modi to leave the Teen Murti Complex, which houses the NMML, "undisturbed", Singh had said the present museum respected both history and heritage.

Union minister Sharma said, "PM's are not just individuals, but they are institutions in themselves."

"Currently, we only have memorials dedicated to three PM's of India - Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Indira Gandhi...This museum will also accommodate future PMs as well...It will not just have the PMs umbrella and cap, but messages from their lives...," he said.

"The museum will be completed within a year," Sharma said, adding that no part of the NMML which exists on a two-acre land on the premises will be touched during the construction of the new museum.

The proposed museum will depict modern India through the collections related to each prime minister and it has been designed in such a way that the Chakra with its 24 spokes will take centre stage, he said.

Sharma said there should be no controversy over the ownership of the land on which museum building will be built.

"The land belongs to the government and while some of it has been given to NMML, 23 acres is still left and we have decided to use it," he said.