india

Updated: Jan 24, 2019 07:35 IST

Prime Minister Narendra Modi would inaugurate a solar-powered memorial to the 1930 protest march Mahatma Gandhi led against British monopoly over salt in Gujarat’s coastal village of Dandi on Gandhi’s 71st death anniversary on January 30.

Gandhi began the march against the ban on Indians producing or selling salt from Ahmedabad to Dandi near Surat, over 380 km away, on the Arabian Sea coast on March 12, 1930. He led his followers in picking up handfuls of salt as a mark of protest against the ban around a month later on April 6, 1930.

The march was among the first protests in Gandhi’s civil disobedience movement against the British. A laser-lit salt making experience has been planned for the visitors at the National Salt Satyagraha Memorial (NSSM).

“ Although the memorial will be dedicated to the nation on January 30, we plan to open it fully for the visitors after 10-12 days,” said Sudarshan Iyengar, the vice president of the High-Level Dandi Memorial Committee (HLDMC) that was constituted in 2011

The NSSM, which is also known as Dandi Memorial, has been built to recreate the spirit of the march in 1930 and has come up at the cost of nearly Rs 70 crore with the Union culture ministry’s support. It is being opened to the public around 14 years after it was proposed.

IIT-Bombay was assigned the task of designing, coordinating and implementing the project under the Central Public Works Department’s supervision.

Iyengar said the memorial was spread over 15 acres of land and will be powered by as many as 41 solar panels. “The monument is 40 metres high with a steel frame. It has a glass cube on the top, symbolising hands holding a salt crystal,’’ he said. Iyengar said the memorial was not just a technological marvel. “We want to communicate to the masses how Gandhiji and the satyagrahis fought against the British Empire’s injustice and exploitation.”