New Delhi: BJP president Amit Shah today unveiled a 12-feet tall and 25-feet long steel Charkha and inaugurated a heritage Charkha Museum at Palika Bazar Park in Connaught Place here.
Undeterred by heavy downpour just before the programme was about the start, which partially washed out the arrangements, Shah along with senior NDA government ministers Kalraj Mishra, Mahesh Sharma, Vijay Goel and Haribhai P Choudhary unveiled the 2.5-tonne charkha, an initiative to link it with tourism in the centenary year of Champaran satyagraha.
The charkha installed by Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) is made of high-quality chromium nickel stainless steel and is corrosion resistant, non-magnetic and not hardenable by heat.
KVIC chairman
Vinai Kumar Saxena said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has hailed the initiative and in his special message said “As Mahatma Gandhi himself believed, the charkha is a symbol of our swaraj and self-reliance. The museum and the monument for the charkha in the national capital will be a proud tribute the charkha’s historic importance in our nation”.
Talking about the initiative, Saxena said that the charkha, like the memorial to unknown soldiers, is memorial to the unknown rural masses, who took to the demonstrated ways of self-reliance and dignity of labour following the call of the father of the nation.
He said that the KVIC, in association with New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), has set up this heritage Charkha museum, showcasing 50 to 100 year old charkhas, gifted to the commission by their owners.
“The charkha, run by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 18, 2016 at Ludhiana, has also been kept permanently in the museum for display for general public,” Saxena said and added that since the museum is located in the heart of national capital, it will certainly catch the eyes of foreign tourists coming here.
The 12-feet tall and 25-feet long spinning charkha has been made by Prayog Samiti, a KVIC unit, near Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat from high quality stainless steel donated by Steel Authority of India (SAIL).
A white marble statue of Mahatma Gandhi which was also unveiled by the BJP national president and the large steel charkha will be visible from all four sides of Baba Kharak Singh Marg at Connaught Place.
Several other dignitaries including BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi were present on the occasion.
—PTI