"The memorial would be iconic," said Army Chief Bipin Rawat. (File)
Work on the National War Memorial near India Gate is likely to be completed by end of December, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat said in Delhi on Wednesday.
The memorial will honour soldiers who have laid down their lives for the country since Independence.
"The work on the National War Memorial is likely to be completed by this year end. It will include a wall that will carry the names of those soldiers who have laid down their lives for the country," General Rawat told PTI on the sidelines of an event at South Block in Delhi.
The Army chief said, "The memorial would be iconic and serve as a new landmark, which would attract people from near and far." Acceding to a long-pending demand of the armed forces, the government in 2015 had approved the project for building a National War Memorial and a National War Museum near India Gate in memory of over 22,500 soldiers who laid down their lives post-Independence.
"This government will be establishing a war memorial and a museum with a deep sense of gratitude to honour those brave soldiers, who laid down their lives," an official statement released after the Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had then said.
"The memorial will promote a sense of patriotism in the minds of visitors, and will award an opportunity to citizens of this vast nation, to express their token sense of gratitude to the brave soldiers, who laid down their lives for the motherland," it said.
India Gate itself is a war memorial built during the British Raj as the All-India War Memorial Arch to honour the soldiers who died in the First World War (1914-1918) and the Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919). The landmark has names of various soldiers inscribed on its surface.