ISLAMABAD: The architectural design work of the lingering project of establishing a first-ever National Museum of Pakistan in Islamabad which was direly needed to preserve thousands of ruining antiquities still, awaited the required funds for completion.
“The consultant was hired through Public Works Department (PWD) to work on the design of the museum during the previous government tenure but the process halted due to lack of funds despite many requests from the concerned authorities”, an official of National History and Literary Heritage (NH&LH) Division stated this while talking to APP on Tuesday.
An amount of Rs2.29 million was approved during the last financial year for redesigning and planning of the museum which was utilized on other expenditures while the proper redesigning work could not be started yet.
The official informed that the project of the national museum was lingering since the era of Muhammad Ayub Khan and could not be implemented during the previous governments due to lack of focus.
Thousands of antiquities including unique sculptures of Buddhist era, clay utensils, guns of British era, oil lamps, jewelry boxes, mother goddess sculptures, lantern, handwritten Holy Quran scripts etc. are ruining in the godown of Taxila Museum and almirahs of Department of Archeology and Museums (DoAM) due to lack of space in the Islamabad Museum.
However, NH&LH Division since its creation took strong initiatives to revive this project and is in contact with Planning Commission to acquire funds for constructing the museum facility in the next financial year, the official said.
The national level museum would be established at 3.24 acres land which was already acquired at Shakarparian near Lok Virsa while the foundation stone of the museum could not be laid yet despite much commitment by the previous government, the official added.
Prominent Archeologist, Dr Muhammad Ashraf Khan said, museum played a great role in the promotion of cultural heritage, education and economy of the country and also became the key partner in the cultural tourism and innovative industry as well.
It was very unfortunate that our federal capital has no national-level museum facility despite land acquired for the proposed museum near Lok Virsa. PC-I for construction of the museum has already been completed.
It is a dire need of the hour to increase awareness regarding the importance of capital museum for
the projection of the soft image of the country. The government should take up this task on priority and allocate funds in the next financial year, he said.
Dr Ashraf said a special task force should be established only for the establishment of the museum in the capital as it would create more than 500 jobs in pursuance of the present government’s vision and policy and would help boost cultural tourism in the country.
It is pertinent to mention here that the national museum was established after the independence of Pakistan in the then capital Karachi, which was supposed to be shifted to Islamabad after becoming the federal capital.
A nucleus of the National Museum of Pakistan was established in a private house of E-7 Sector in 1994, and then the project was rolled back in 1998 with the shifting of the artefacts stored there to Taxila Museum.
Again in 2002, the nucleus of National Museum was established in a small hall of Sir Syed Memorial Building in Islamabad where only 145 selected artefacts of the previous museum could be housed while the remaining were stored in Taxila Museum.
The PC-I for Rs13,569.589 million was submitted to the authorities in 2008 but the project was suspended for two to three years by the then Secretary Culture due to financial constraints.
The architectural design of the proposed `National Museum of Pakistan’ was finalised through a competition soon after 8.33 acres land acquisition at Shakarparian from Capital Development Authority (CDA) in the year 2009.
The department again submitted PC-I of Rs55.577 million in the September 2015 to the relevant ministry while the approval was not given, the official said.