Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Tuesday visit Maharashtra's Pune city where he will lay the foundation stone of various development projects and also receive the Lokmanya Tilak National Award.
After his arrival, Modi will perform darshan and pooja at Dagdusheth Mandir. At 11.45 am, he will be conferred the Lokmanya Tilak National Award, constituted by Tilak Smarak Mandir Trust in 1983, to honour the legacy of Lokmanya Tilak, as per a statement issued by the Press Information Bureau (PIB).
NCP chief Sharad Pawar has been invited as chief guest for the event, organisers earlier said. The award is given to people who have worked for the progress and development of the nation and whose contribution can only be looked upon as remarkable and extraordinary, the PIB statement said.
It is presented every year on August 1, the death anniversary of Lokmanya Tilak, the statement said. Prime Minister Modi will become the 41st recipient of the award. It has previously been presented to luminaries such as Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma, Pranab Mukherjee, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Indira Gandhi, Manmohan Singh, N R Narayana Murthy, E Sreedharan, among others. At 12.45 pm, the prime minister will flag off Metro trains and inaugurate and lay the foundation stone for various development projects, the statement said.
Modi will flag off Metro trains marking the inauguration of services on completed sections of the two corridors of Pune Metro Phase I. These sections are from Phugewadi station to Civil Court station and Garware College station to Ruby Hall Clinic station, it said. The new sections will connect important places of Pune city like Shivaji Nagar, Civil Court, Pune Municipal Corporation office, Pune RTO and Pune Railway Station. The inauguration is an important step towards realising the vision of the prime minister to provide the citizens with modern and environment-friendly mass rapid urban transport systems across the country, the statement said.