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Chandigarh admn pours money on
memorial named after Beant
WSN Network
 CHANDIGARH:
How the Indian establishment feels happy at making heroes out of
pygmies! Neither was the late Chief Minister of Punjab, Beant Singh,
known for any intellectual activity nor for any refined sense of
glorious senstivities like music or art but when it came to having
an auditorium and a multi-art facility in Chandigarh, the
establishment could no better than to think of naming it after a man
known only for human rights violations and presiding over a regime
that believed in killing innocent Sikh youth in fake encounters.
Now, a report of
the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has raised brought out
how the Chandigarh administration was making undue fund sanctions to
the Beant Singh memorial, and instead of Rs 2 crore, has given Rs 11
crore for it. It wanted to give even more, and is still adamant on
doing so.
It is a comment
on our times that even aware sections of the Indian civil society
and residents of a city like Chandigarh that prides itself on high
literacy rate and many men and women of letters and arts as its
inhabitants have failed to object to the nomenclature of an art
facility after such a man.
The Chandigarh
administration's "undue" contribution towards the Beant Singh
Memorial project came to light in the CAG report that is a highly
respected instrument for checking frauds. UT Administrator Gen S.F.
Rodrigues (retd) is also said to have expressed concern over the
exorbitant expenditure made by the administration. The Administrator
had stated that heavy funding was not required for the project and
the existing infrastructure should be improved with the funds
available.
Rodrigues has
made his contribution in structuring this project as a hub of
cultural and literary pursuits, featuring the history and culture of
the entire region, but he too has remained mum on its mum. The
gurdwara sabhas in Chandigarh, the Institute of Sikh Studies and
sundry other orghanisations perhaps need to pay attention to the
issue.
The total cost
of the project was estimated around Rs 25 crore, almost twice the
amount sanctioned a decade ago. Punjab was to contribute Rs 10 crore
initially towards the project, while the UT was to give Rs 2 crore.
It is learnt
that Punjab has contributed only Rs 6 crore so far, while the
administration has pumped in Rs 11 crore. The administration has
allocated this amount from its own resources, to which objections
have been raised in the audit.
Incidentally,
under the Prakash Singh Badal regime, even the Punjab government had
assured that it would honour the commitment of releasing the
remaining amount.
29
July 2009
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