ISLAMABAD: The PC-II for the redesign of the National Museum of Pakistan received its final nod of approval from the Departmental Development Working Committee (DDWP), and will be submitted to the Planning Division soon.

National History and Literary Division Joint Secretary Mashhood Mirza confirmed that the PC-II had been approved and would be submitted to the Planning Division shortly.

He said the PC-II, amounting to Rs2.6 million, was a low cost project and so was submitted to the departmental committee for approval.Projects that cost large sums are submitted to the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) for approval, he said.

He said the museum was designed for eightacresland buttheland allotted toit was only three acres, so a redesign of the museum was needed to start the project.

The design for a state of the art national museum would be selected through an open competition with participation from various expert architects, he said.

According to the official Department of Archaeology and Museums (DOAM) source, the redesign project was submitted a few months ago, in order to pre-serve the national heritage of unique artefacts.

The national museum project has lingered for nine years, and received only Rs4.5 million for its redesign in the 201617 budgetary allocations.

The source said thousands of artefacts discovered from various historical sites in the country or recovered by Customs were ruining in the absence of an adequate museum facility in Islamabad.

Sources said the artefacts were housed in various museums` warehouses, while others were placed on different floors of the DOAM due to a lack of space in the Sir Syed Memorial Museum Hall.

These antiquities include handwritten Holy Quran scripts, unique Buddhist-era sculptures, clay utensils, British-era guns, oil lamps, jewellery boxes, mother goddess sculptures, lanterns and many others.

After independence, the national museum was established in Karachi and was supposed to be shifted to Islamabad after it became the federal capital.

A nucleus of the museum was set up in a private house in E-7 in 1994, but the project was rolled back in 1998 with the shifting of artefacts to Taxila Museum.

APP