National Maritime Heritage Museum | 12 Jun 2019

• India and Portugal will cooperate in the setting up of a National Maritime Heritage Museum at the ancient Indian site of Lothal in Gujarat.
• The museum will display the India’s heritage of inland waterways and trade through water route.
• Lothal was chosen because it has lots of archaeological remains, showcasing the trade route through water. It was a major maritime activities center of Harappans.
• Lothal displays engineering standards used in creating an artificial dock that shows high standards of scientific and engineering skills, far more advanced than anywhere else in the world in the 3rd millennium BC.
• The Government of India has allocated grant for building the maritime museum and the foundation stone for the project was laid by the Prime Minister in March, 2019.
• The project is being implemented by the Ministry of Shipping through its Sagarmala programme, with the involvement of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the State government and other stakeholders.
  • Sagarmala project was approved by the Union Cabinet on 25th March 2015. It aims to leverage the country’s coastline and inland waterways to drive industrial development.
  • Its main objective is to promote port-led direct and indirect development and to provide infrastructure to transport goods to and from ports quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively.