India partners with Portugal to set up a national maritime heritage museum at Lothal

India has partnered with Portugal to set up a national maritime heritage museum at Lothal in Gujarat. The Indian Navy will be the stakeholder in the project and the Portuguese Navywill assist as they have experience in it by administering the maritime museum in Lisbon, Portugal. India is to follow a similar model of the maritime museum.

Implementation of the project:
In March 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the project and the Government of India has allocated a grant for building the maritime museum.
The project will be implemented by the Ministry of Shipping through its Sagarmala programme. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) along with the State government and other stakeholders is also involved in setting up the museum.

Partnership and plans:
The initial discussion about the partnership was held during the visit of Portuguese Defence Minister João Gomes Cravinho to India in April 2019. A Defence Ministry-led delegation will visit Portugal to study the existing museum.

Maritime museum:
A maritime museum is a museum that specializes in display the objects relating to ships and travel on large bodies of water. A subcategory of maritime museums are naval museums, which focus on navies and the military use of the sea.