The Union Culture Ministry on Friday said the fourth edition of the e-auction of gifts given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi would start from Saturday, with around 1,200 mementos up for grabs.
During a briefing, Culture Minister G. Kishan Reddy said 1,222 gifts to Mr. Modi would be auctioned from Saturday, which is Mr. Modi’s birthday, till October 2. The proceeds of the auction would go towards the Namami Gange project as was the case for the previous auctions, he said. He said 1,805 items were auctioned in the first round in 2019 and 2,772 in the second round. In 2021, the third auction had 1,348 items, he said. Some of the selected mementos have been displayed at the National Gallery of Modern Art here, while the list and base price of all of the mementos will be available on pmmementos.gov.in, which is also the site for the bidding.
“Mementos in the auction include exquisite paintings, sculptures, handicrafts and folk artefacts. Several of these are items customarily offered as gifts, such as traditional angavastrams, shawls, headgears, ceremonial swords. Other memorabilia of interest include the replicas and the models of the Shri Ram Mandir at Ayodhya and the Kashi-Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi. We also have an exciting section of sports memorabilia,” he said.
