Indian Express 05.05.2010
New case for MCD City Zone: cracking mystery of heritage museum’s missing file
Ayesha Arvind Tags : mcd, heritage museum Posted: Monday , Apr 05, 2010 at 0154 hrs
New Delhi: A file related to the proposed heritage museum, which was to be set up by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) at Lahori Gate before the Commonwealth Games, is now untraceable, Newsline has learnt.
Earlier last month, Deputy Commissioner (DC) of MCD’s City Zone, Krishan Kumar, also in charge of the project, reportedly wrote to other departments of the civic body, asking whether they knew “where and at what stage the heritage museum file was”, for the departments were also “associated with the project at some stage”.
Krishan Kumar refused to comment on the status of the file but admitted that the project is at a “standstill”. He said, “There are many projects that the Corporation accepted but will not be completed before the Games — the museum is one of them. While the file must be somewhere within the zone, it is with the Corporation.”
Sources in the City Zone confirmed that the file is “untraceable”. A civic official said, “It was an old proposal and the previous DC was enthusiastic about it. It must have been sent to some other department; we will trace it soon.”
The proposal to develop a heritage museum, a part of the redevelopment plan of Chandni Chowk, was floated by the MCD nearly four years ago, though nothing materialised for long. In July 2008, then Mayor Arti Mehra announced that the MCD had decided to develop a heritage museum along with a tourist information centre at Lahori Gate to “introduce the history and civilisation of the Walled City area to domestic and foreign tourists”.
The museum, she said, would showcase the history of Old Delhi in five sections: pre-Mughal period, Mughal era, Revolt of 1857, 1857-1947, and 1947-2008.
A research centre and a heritage library were also to be established at the site.
Mehra had also announced that since the former Chandni Chowk MP and BJP leader Vijay Goel had shown interest in the project and donated Rs 50 lakh from his MP funds, and that he would be appointed chairman of the museum’s advisory board.
In December 2008, during his civic Budget speech, Municipal Commissioner K S Mehra announced that the MCD would develop the heritage museum and information centre.
He told Newsline last week that while the museum proposal was intact, MCD had decided to take up the Chandni Chowk redevelopment work in phases. “We are only taking up the work that could be completed before the Games,” he said. “The rest of it will be done later.”
