Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said Prime Minister Modi has launched a nationwide campaign to free the country from symbols of colonial rule, that is why Port Blair has been renamed Sri Vijaya Puram, and the islands have been named after India’s brave freedom fighters.
Shah inaugurated and laid the foundation stone for various development projects of the Andaman and Nicobar Administration at Sri Vijaya Puram.
In his address on the occasion, Shah noted that on this very land, many martyred freedom fighters, who fought for India’s independence, spent years of their lives in the Cellular Jail built by the British. Many people breathed their last here, strengthening India’s freedom struggle, and many brave souls were hanged.
The Union home minister said the memorial of Veer Savarkar and the eternal flame lit in the Cellular Jail tell the entire world that many great souls sacrificed their lives here.
Shah recalled Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was the first to hoist the Tricolour at this place of free India, and in his memory and honour of his words, Prime Minister Narendra Modi named two islands as Shaheed and Swaraj.
He said PM Modi has undertaken the task of naming every island in this archipelago after heroes of the Indian freedom struggle.
This land is a pilgrimage site for every citizen of free India, because it was here that “our freedom fighters endured suffering as strength, solitude as resolve, and torture as the path to freedom, ultimately achieving independence,” he averred.
The Home minister said the prime minister has transformed this island into a strategic power. Nine major development projects were inaugurated and the foundation stone for two projects was laid here today, and in a single day, development works worth Rs 373 crore were gifted to this island.
These development projects, he said, include an Integrated Command and Control Centre with a cost of Rs 229 crore. The inauguration of Phase-I of the district hospital at a cost of Rs 33 crore, the inauguration of a Forensic Science Laboratory, and the inauguration of six other schemes at a cost of Rs 50 crore also took place today.