Sharad Pawar: Ignore free advice against building memorials

NCP chief Sharad Pawar at Indu Mill on Tuesday. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

Stressing the need for world-class memorials that eventually become an identity of the city or country, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) boss Sharad Pawar said that the authorities should ignore the advice of those who say that the money put into building these monuments should be used elsewhere.

Speaking to the media after visiting Dadar's Indu Mills, the site where a memorial of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar is being built, Pawar said, "There is no restriction on giving free advice in our country. We can take the good things and ignore the ones that are not useful." He further said that grand memorials were needed and there should be no cost-cutting if a good plan needed to be executed. However, 25 per cent of the memorial's work has already been completed.

"I'm sure the Ambedkar memorial will prove to be a great attraction for those travelling from South East Asia (also China) and for everyone who values the creator of our Constitution. On one side is Chaitya Bhumi (where Dr Ambedkar was cremated) and on other will be a grand memorial. It should be a kind of convergence," he added.

Incidentally, Dr Ambedkar's grandson Prakash, who heads Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, had asked the government to allot the money given for making his grandfather's statue taller by 100 ft, to Wadia Hospitals, which is going through a huge financial crisis. Many people had welcomed his opinion. Referring to this, Pawar said Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had solved the Wadia issue by directing the release of grants. With regard to the Dr Ambedkar memorial, he congratulated the previous governments - the Congress and NCP for conceptualising it in 2013 and the BJP-Sena regime for getting the clearances and laying the foundation. However, he said that the credit for increasing the height of the statue must go to the Maha Vikas Aghadi government though it was said that the BJP-led government had already decided on the same.

Satisfied with the plan presented to him by the planning and executing agency, MMRDA, Pawar said that it was not impossible to complete the work in two years if the officials and contractors concerned showed the needed resolve. "We must get further permissions as soon as possible, and the company which is known for its good work, should take it as a challenge and finish the work in the next two years," he added.

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