Cuttack: The roads and buildings division of the works department will come up with the Millennium City Gate here by the end of this month.

Coming up near the temple of Goddess Chandi, the presiding deity of Cuttack, the structure will be the first of its kind in the city to commemorate its glorious history of more than one thousand years.

Though Cuttack celebrated 1,000 years of its foundation way back in 1989, no structure has ever come up anywhere in the city to commemorate it.

The Millennium City Gate is a Rs 1 crore concrete gate project. The gate will be 37ft high with clearance of 19ft on each of the existing twolane road on which it is coming up. The structure has come up on three pillars - each having a diameter of four feet.

The foundation stone for the project was laid on April 4 last year, but the construction started two months after that. Though construction of two concrete pillars was completed in November, work on the third pillar could not start due to some land-related problems.

The state government finally made a piece of land available from the premises of Sailabala Women's College in March this year, following which construction started for the third pillar.

Mahanadi Coalfields Limited has given Rs 70 lakh for the project, while the state government is bearing the remaining cost.

A Cuttack roads and buildings official said on Sunday that construction of the gate was nearing completion. "We expect to complete giving finishing touches to the gate by the end of this month," he said.

Telenga Bazaar resident Pradip Sahoo said: "It is a landmark project celebrating the city's glorious past. It is strange that there has been no reminder that the city celebrated its 1,000 years some 29 years ago."