Ladakh: Kargil War Memorial Home Dedicated To Soldiers Will Help Brave Biting Cold During Winters

Located at an altitude of 10,800 feet, where temperatures drop to minus 30 degrees sometimes, the facility has been built using bricks made by mixing crop straw and Ladakh soil.

Vijay Diwas Celebrations At Kargil War Memorial In Drass

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New Delhi: Kargil War Memorial Home, a facility built for the soldiers posted at the memorial, was dedicated to the jawans on Vijay Diwas on July 26. The eco-friendly home, built by the Nagpur-based Lokmat media group, was inaugurated by the chairman of the editorial board of Lokmat Media and former member of Rajya Sabha Vijay Darda, in the presence of General Officer Commanding (GOC), Fire and Fury Corps, Lt Gen Anindya Sengupta, and the editor-in-chief of Lokmat Media and former minister, Rajendra Darda.

According to a report by news agency PTI, the facility was designed by renowned educationist and founder of the Himalayan Institute of Alternatives, Ladakh (HIAL) Sonam Wangchuk, for the soldiers to brave the winter months in the second coldest inhabited place on earth and the gateway to the Union Territory of Ladakh, Drass.

Located at an altitude of 10,800 feet, where temperatures drop to minus 30 degrees sometimes, the facility has been built using bricks made by mixing crop straw and Ladakh soil. However, the temperature in the memorial home will remain over 15 degrees Celsius, which means the water for daily use will not freeze.

"For this, the crop straw thrown away by the farmers from Punjab and the soil of Ladakh has been mainly used," PTI quoted the chief operating officer of HIAL, Tanmay Mukherjee, as saying.

The single-storey building, in the campus of Kargil War Memorial, is located five kilometres from the city centre in the foothills of the Tololing Hill and can house a maximum of 10 jawans guarding the memorial, that is dedicated to 559 soldiers who were martyred during the Kargil War.

A poem "Pushp Kii Abhilasha" (Wish of a Flower) by Makhanlal Chaturvedi, a renowned 20th-century Hindi poet, is also inscribed on the gateway of the memorial. Also, the names of the martyred soldiers are inscribed on the memorial Wall.

"This was built in a record time of one month and can ensure a temperature of 15 degrees inside the building round the year," Mukherjee told PTI.