Main building of Netaji Birthplace Museum in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Dec. 9: Be there to see the life and works of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at the museum named after him.

The state culture department plans to start a light and sound show to commemorate Netaji’s 116th birth anniversary on January 23.

Though the Rs 30-lakh light and sound show project was drawn up in 2008 after Rourkela Steel Plant assured to fund the entire project and provided Rs 10 lakh in the first phase for this purpose, it could not be started on time because of non-availability of funds.

Work on the open-air gallery to accommodate 100-odd viewers and sound arrangement involving dramatisation of the script and audio recording was completed with the steel plant’s first instalment of Rs 10 lakh in 2009. But the installation of light arrangements had not followed because of funds crunch.

The steel plant provided the remaining Rs 20 lakh only in March this year. The project also had to be accordingly revised to use up-to-date technology for installation of light arrangements.

“After re-tendering for application of state-of-the-art light arrangements, a work order has been issued for completing the project,” the museum’s officiating director Sushil Kumar Das told The Telegraph.

“We expect to make a trial run of the light and sound system by January 15, 2013, and start the show for the public by January 23,” he said.

The much-awaited project involves a 20-minute show on the life of Netaji based on a script penned by Bijay Mishra. The sets have been designed by Asim Basu.

Official sources said a Bhubaneswar-based agency has been assigned the job of installation of light arrangements after Surabhi Productions completed installation of the sound and audio recording system.

“We have been waiting for the show for some years now. I just hope the government won’t miss the deadline this time,” said Satyajit Roy, a resident of Bidanasi.

An official of the museum said the light and sound show would focus on the depiction of different phases in Netaji’s life in the 13 galleries at the museum.

The phases include his early life, student and political life, his time in the Indian National Army, the provisional government of Azad Hind, the Azad Hind Radio and the National Bank of Azad Hind.

The show will also throw light on the frame of Netaji’s mind and failing health condition for most part of the 1920s through the letters written by him to his father Janaki Nath Bose while in prison.