Only Rs 4.5 Million Allocated To Redesign The National Museum Of Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Only Rs 4.5 million has been allocated from the national budget to redesign the already designed National Museum of Pakistan. After independence, the National Museum was in Karachi which then shifted to Islamabad after great struggle when the city became the federal capital.
The authorities concerned are very disappointed at the allocation of insufficient amount from the budget for the preservation of artifacts discovered from various historical places. According to an official source, the architectural design of the proposed National Museum of Pakistan was finalized through a competition after the acquisition of 8.33 acres of land at Shakarparian from the Capital Development Authority (CDA) in 2009.
“All the previous efforts, including the amount spent on holding a competition to finalize the design and land acquisition, would now go to waste”, the source said. Now the authorities have decided to construct the museum at only 3 acres of land due to limited financial resources.
This has been the case previously as well. In 2008, the PC-I of Rs 13569.589 million was suspended by the then Secretary due to financial constraints. Similarly in September 2015, when the PC-I of Rs 55.577 million was submitted by the the Department of Archaeology and Museums (DOAM), it was not approved by the relevant Ministry.
As there is no proper facility to preserve artifacts, there is a great risk of them being ruined. These artifacts include handwritten Holy Quran scripts, unique sculptures of Buddhist era, clay utensils, British era guns, oil lamps, precious jewelry boxes, mother goddess sculptures and many such unique and historic items, the source said.
Due to lack of space at Sir Syed Memorial Museum Hall, thees artifacts are stored in warehouses of different museums and on the floors in different small rooms of DOAM. These antiquities represent our culture and are of great importance to boost tourism in our country, therefore sufficient resources should be allocated to preserve them, the source said.
