Over 2,700 mementos, including shawls, headgears, paintings and swords, presented to PM Narendra Modi over the last six months are currently up for e-auction and some of them also up on display at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi. All proceeds will go towards the Namami Gange Project&mdashto aid in the cleaning, conservation and preservation of the lifeline of the country.
On September 14, 2019, the e-auction was inaugurated by Prahlad Singh Patel, the Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism. The display at NGMA is titled 'Smriti Chinh&rsquo and the mementos will change weekly for the general public to see. While the exhibition will be open from 11am-8pm every day from September 14 to October 3, 2019, the e-auction will be conducted at www.pmmementos.gov.in. The lowest base price of the mementos is @INR200 and the highest is @INR2.5 lakh, informed the minister at a press conference. He added that the top 20 highest bidders will be sent a letter from the Government of India, complimenting them for their contribution towards the project.
From the collection that includes 576 shawls, 964 anga vastrams, 88 pagris and various jackets along with silverware and various portraits, the highest-valued items are a pagri captioned &lsquoRajarshi Bhagyachandra Kokyet&rsquo presented by the Chief Minister of Manipur and a portrait of the Prime Minister embroidered on silk, gifted by the owner of Seematti textiles, Beena Kannan. Both items are valued at @INR2.5 lakh each.
In January 2019, NGMA under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture had auctioned off 1,800 mementos received by PM Modi, both physically and online.