Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has decided to provide 9.6 acres of land free of cost to the Ministry of Culture for the purpose of setting up a Paika Rebellion Memorial near Khurda town, state minister Niranjan Pujari told the Assembly Tuesday.
Pujari, the parliamentary affairs minister, said that the proposal has received the state cabinet’s approval at a meeting presided over by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
“The state government has decided to provide 9.685 acre land for free in Khurda Mouza to the Ministry of Culture for construction of Paika Memorial to honour the warriors who led the rebellion,” the minister stated.
An official statement here said that the value of the land stood at Rs 31.97 crore.
The Odisha government had long been demanding that ‘Paika Bidroha’ of 1817 be declared as the first war of Independence against the British as it occurred 40 years before the Sepoy Mutiny.
Meanwhile, senior BJP leader and Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan took to Twitter to thank Patnaik for the move.
“The memorial will be seen as an epitome of Odisha’s valour and serve as a source of inspiration for future generations,” Pradhan wrote, adding that he had recently visited the site.
Pradhan, in 2017, had requested the Culture Ministry to identify a suitable place at Barunei, which was the epicentre of Paika rebellion, for the proposed memorial.
PTI
