Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation of the Queen Durgawati Memorial in Jabalpur two years ago.
A committee of ministers headed by the Chief Minister was set up after the foundation-laying ceremony of the memorial. MP Tourism Development Corporation issued an order in November last year, but the work for the memorial is yet to begin.
The work could not start due to lack of land. Modi laid the foundation on the 500th birth anniversary of Queen Durgawati.
A cabinet meeting, held in Damoh on October 5 last year, approved a garden adjacent to the memorial. A committee, consisting of Panchayat and Rural Development Minister Prahlad Patel, PWD Minister Rakesh Singh, Tribal Welfare Minister Vijay Shah and Culture and Tourism Minister Dharmendra Singh Lodhi, was set up.
It was decided that the memorial would be set up on 24 acres at a cost of Rs 100 crore.
Approval was given for installing a bronze statue and setting up an open-air theatre, an art and craft zone, and a food zone around the memorial, but nothing has been done. The people of the Gond community complained to the Prime Minister’s Office for not starting the work.
In the complaint, they said the foundation had been laid on encroached land. This was the reason that two years had passed since the foundation was laid, but the work was yet to start.
According to reports, over 600 families are living on the land where Modi laid the foundation of the memorial, but the district administration does not have the guts to remove the encroachers.
The work of the government cannot start the construction of the memorial until the encroachers go. An RTI activist has also complained about it. In the complaint, he said there was no land for starting a project, but a tender for work worth Rs 70 crore had been issued.
Encroachments to be removed after monsoon, says Lodhi
Tourism Minister Dharmendra Singh Lodhi said a sum of Rs 7 crore had been sanctioned to rehabilitate the encroachers who were living in the land allotted for the construction of the memorial.
According to Lodhi, action to remove the encroachers will begin after the monsoon.
