Mysore/Mysuru: The city-based VeKare Ex-Servicemen Trust has urged the State Government to give exemption from entry fee to the armed and paramilitary forces personnel visiting ‘Sunny Side’ that houses General K.S. Thimayya Museum in Madikeri, Kodagu district.

Trust President Mandetira N. Subramani has written a letter to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai urging to fulfill this demand by exempting entry fee to those in service and retired Armed Forces personnel.

Urging the Kodagu District Administration and the Government to consider the request, he said the exemption in paying an entry fee of Rs. 20 has been sought as a respect towards the Armed Forces fraternity.

Subramani has also urged the Director, Department of Sainik Welfare and Resettlement, to impress upon the Chief Minister to pass orders in this regard.

He has suggested the exemption should be granted upon production of identity cards issued by the competent authority.

The suggestion came from an 85-year-old ex-serviceman Manira T. Nachappa, who had fought three major wars when he served the 37 Coorg Medium Regiment from November 1957 to December 1977.

“Nachappa met me at the recent annual general body meeting of T. Shettigeri Ex-Ser-vicemen Welfare Association in Kodagu and urged me to take up the issue with the authorities concerned,” Subramani said. The museum was inaugurated in February 2021 by President of India Ram Nath Kovind. “Sunny Side”, the ancestral house of General K.S. Thimayya, who served as the Chief of Army Staff from 1957 to 1961, has been converted into a museum.