More than two decades after it was first proposed, the War Memorial will project in Mysuru is expected to take off soon with Minister for Co-operation S.T. Somashekar, who is also the Minister in charge of Mysuru district, scheduled to lay the foundation stone for the War Memorial on a plot of land near the NCC Group headquarters adjacent to the Deputy Commissioner’s office on July 29.
With the decks cleared for the launch of the much-awaited War Memorial project, Air veteran Manditera N. Subramani, who is also the president of Vekare Ex-Servicemen Trust, Mysuru, has recalled the efforts made by him in the year 2000 by submitting a proposal in the regard to the Mysuru district administration headed by the then Deputy Commissioner Basavaraju and followed it up till the present plot for the memorial was approved.
Later, the proposal was cemented during the tenure of Mr. Manivannan as the DC, he said while adding that army veteran and KAS officer Anand also gave a thrust to the pending project during his tenure as Assistant Commissioner in Mysuru.
Mr. Subramani wrote to the Joint Director of Department of Sainik Welfare and Resettlement, Mysuru, to impress upon the officials of Department of Kannada and Culture, who have been assigned to oversee the construction, to send invitations to the general officers and their equivalent retired officers from Indian Navy and Indian Air Force residing in Mysuru for the Guddali Pooja.
The authorities can use the assistance of the senior retired defence officers to impress upon the Army, Navy and Air Force to send a grounded artillery tank, small naval ship and a fighter jet for placing them near the War Memorial so that it could attract the youth and motivate them to take up careers in Armed Forces, he said.
