The ''Statue of Unity'' is the world's tallest statue, with a height of , located near Kevadia in the state of

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the nin ...

, India. It depicts Indian statesman and

independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the s ...

activist Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950), who was the first deputy prime minister and home minister of independent India and an adherent of

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, Anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure ...

. Patel was highly respected for his leadership in uniting 562

princely states A princely state (also called native state or Indian state) was a nominally sovereign entity of the British Indian Empire that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule, subject to ...

of India to form the single Union of India. The statue is located in Gujarat on the Narmada River in the Kevadiya colony, facing the Sardar Sarovar Dam southeast of the city of

Vadodara Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is the second largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district and is situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River, from the state capita ...

. The project was first announced in 2010, and construction started in October 2013 by Indian company Larsen & Toubro, with a total construction cost of

₹ The Indian rupee sign (₹) is the currency symbol for the Indian rupee (ISO 4217: INR), the official currency of India. Designed by D. Udaya Kumar, it was presented to the public by the Government of India on 15 July 2010, following its select ...

27 billion (US$ million). It was designed by Indian sculptor Ram V. Sutar and was inaugurated by the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

of India,

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the List of Prime Ministers of India, 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the List of chief ministers of Gujarat, Chief Minist ...

, on 31 October 2018, the 143rd anniversary of Patel's birth.

History

Narendra Modi announced the project on 7 October 2013 to mark the beginning of his tenth year as the chief minister of Gujarat. A society named Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Rashtriya Ekta Trust (SVPRET) was formed under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister of Gujarat, to execute the project. Statue of Unity Movement was started in 2013 to collect the iron needed for the statue by asking farmers to donate their used farming instruments. By 2016, a total of 135 metric tonnes of scrap iron had been collected and about 109 tonnes of it was used to make the foundation of the statue after processing. A marathon titled ''Run For Unity'' was held on 15 December 2013 in

Surat Surat is a city in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The word Surat literally means ''face'' in Gujarati and Hindi. Located on the banks of the river Tapti near its confluence with the Arabian Sea, it used to be a large seaport. It is no ...

and

in support of the project.

Design and construction

Design

After studying statues of Patel across the country, a team of historians, artists, and academics chose a design submitted by the Indian sculptor Ram V. Sutar. The ''Statue of Unity'' is a larger version of a statue of the leader installed at Ahmedabad International Airport. Commenting on the design, Ram Sutar's son, Anil Sutar explains that, "the expression, posture and pose justify the dignity, confidence, iron will as well as kindness that his personality exudes. The head is up, a shawl flung from shoulders and hands are on the side as if he is set to walk". Three models of the design measuring , , and were initially created. Once the design of the largest model was approved, a detailed 3D-scan was produced which formed the basis for the bronze cladding cast in a

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals ...

in China. Patel's dhoti-clad legs and the use of sandals for footwear rendered the design thinner at the base than at the top thereby affecting its stability. This was addressed by maintaining a slenderness ratio of 16:19 rather than the customary 8:14 ratio of other tall buildings. The statue is built to withstand winds of up to and earthquakes measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale which are at a depth of 10 km and within a radius of 12 km of the statue. This is aided by the use of two 250 tonne

tuned mass damper A tuned mass damper (TMD), also known as a harmonic absorber or seismic damper, is a device mounted in structures to reduce mechanical vibrations, consisting of a mass mounted on one or more Damping ratio, damped springs. Its oscillation frequ ...

s ensuring maximum stability. The total height of the structure is , with a base of and the statue measuring . The height of 182 metres was specifically chosen to match the number of seats in the

Gujarat Legislative Assembly Gujarat Legislative Assembly or Gujarat Vidhan Sabha is the unicameral legislature of the Indian state of Gujarat, in the state capital Gandhinagar. Presently, 182 members of the Legislative Assembly are directly elected from single-member co ...

Funding

The ''Statue of Unity'' was built by a Public Private Partnership model, with most of the money coming from the Government of Gujarat. The Gujarat state government had allotted for the project in its

budget A budget is a calculation play, usually but not always financial, for a defined period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including time, costs and expenses, environme ...

from 2012 to 2015. In the 2014–15 Union Budget, was allocated for the construction of the statue. Funds were also contributed by Public Sector Undertakings under the

Corporate Social Responsibility Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a form of international private business self-regulation which aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature by engaging in or supporting volunteering or ethicall ...

scheme.

Construction

A consortium comprising Turner Construction, Michael Graves and Associates and the Meinhardt Group supervised the project. The project took 57 months to complete – 15 months for planning, 40 months for construction and 2 months for handing over by the consortium. The total cost of the project was estimated to be about by the Government. The tender bids for the first phase were invited in October 2013 and were closed in November 2013.

, then serving as the Chief Minister of Gujarat, laid the statue's foundation stone on 31 October 2013, the 138th anniversary of Patel's birth. Indian infrastructure company Larsen & Toubro won the contract on 27 October 2014 for its lowest bid of for the design, construction and maintenance of the statue. L&T commenced the construction on 31 October 2014. In the first phase of the project, ₹1,347 crore was earmarked for the main statue, ₹235 crore for the exhibition hall and convention centre, ₹83 crore for the bridge connecting the memorial to the mainland and ₹657 crore for the maintenance of the structure for a duration of 15 years after its completion. The Sadhu Bet hillock was flattened from 70 metres to 55 metres to lay the foundation of the statue. L&T employed over 3000 workers and 250 engineers in the statue's construction. The core of the statue used 210,000 cubic metres (7,400,000 cu ft) of cement and concrete, 6,500 tonnes of structural steel, and 18,500 tonnes of reinforced steel. The outer façade is made up of 1,700 tonnes of bronze plates and 1,850 tonnes of bronze cladding which in turn consists of 565 macro and 6000 micro panels. The bronze panels were cast in Jiangxi Tongqing Metal Handicrafts Co. Ltd (the TQ Art foundry) in China as facilities large enough for such casting were unavailable in India. The bronze panels were transported over sea and then by road to a workshop near the construction site where they were assembled. Local tribals belonging to the Tadvi tribe opposed the land acquisition for the development of tourism infrastructure around the statue. Around 300 activists were arrested ahead of unveiling of the statue. People of Kevadia, Kothi, Waghodia, Limbdi, Navagam, and Gora villages opposed the construction of the statue and demanded the restitution of the land rights over of land acquired earlier for the dam as well as for the formation of a new Garudeshwar

subdistrict A subdistrict or sub-district is an administrative division that is generally smaller than a district. Equivalents * Administrative posts of East Timor, formerly Portuguese-language * Kelurahan, in Indonesia * Mukim, a township in Brunei, In ...

. They also opposed the formation of Kevadia Area Development Authority (KADA) and the construction of the Garudeshwar weir-cum-causeway project. The government of Gujarat accepted most of their demands. Construction of the monument was completed in mid-October 2018; and the inaugural ceremony was held on 31 October 2018 (143rd birth anniversary of Vallabhbhai Patel), and was presided over by

. The statue has been described as a tribute to Indian engineering skills.

Features

The ''Statue of Unity'' is the world's tallest statue at . It rises higher than the previous record holder, the

Spring Temple Buddha The Spring Temple Buddha ( and ) is a colossal statue depicting Vairocana Buddha located in the Zhaocun township of Lushan County, Henan, China, built from 1997 to 2008. It is located within the ''Fodushan Scenic Area'', close to National Fre ...

in China's

Henan Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is al ...

province. The previous tallest statue in India was the tall statue of Lord

Hanuman Hanuman (; sa, हनुमान, ), also called Anjaneya (), is a Hindu god and a divine '' vanara'' companion of the god Rama. Hanuman is one of the central characters of the Hindu epic ''Ramayana''. He is an ardent devotee of Rama and ...

at the Paritala Anjaneya Temple near

Vijayawada Vijayawada, formerly known as Bezawada, is the second largest city in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and is a part of the state's Capital Region. It is the administrative headquarters of the NTR district. Its metropolitan region comprises N ...

in the state of

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to t ...

. The statue can be seen within a radius. The monument is constructed on a river island named Sadhu Bet, away from and facing the Narmada Dam downstream. The statue and its surroundings occupy more than , and are surrounded by a long artificial lake formed by the Garudeshwar

weir A weir or low head dam is a barrier across the width of a river that alters the flow characteristics of water and usually results in a change in the height of the river level. Weirs are also used to control the flow of water for outlets of l ...

downstream on the Narmada river. The statue is divided into five zones of which only three are accessible to the public. From its base to the level of Patel's shins is the first zone which has three levels and includes the exhibition area, mezzanine and

roof A roof ( : roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of temp ...

. The first zone also contains a memorial garden and a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and th ...

. The second zone reaches up to Patel's thighs, while the third extends up to the viewing gallery at a height of 153 metres. The fourth zone is the maintenance area while the final zone comprises the head and shoulders of the statue. The museum in the first zone catalogues the life of Sardar Patel and his contributions. An adjoining audio-visual gallery provides a 15-minute long presentation on Patel and also describes the tribal culture of the state. The concrete towers which form the statue's legs contain two elevators each. Each lift can carry 26 people at a time to the viewing gallery in just over 30 seconds. The gallery is located at a height of and can hold up to 200 people.

Tourism

Over 128,000 tourists visited the statue in the 11 days after its opening to the public on 1 November 2018. The daily average tourist footfall at ''Statue of Unity'' during November 2019 reached 15,036, outpacing the Statue of Liberty (which attracts around 10,000 daily visitors on average). It has been included in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s ‘8 Wonders of SCO’ list. In its first year of operation, the ''Statue of Unity'' attracted visitors and collected in ticket revenue. By 15 March 2021, tourists visited the venue. It was visited by one crore (10 million) people by November 2022.

Gallery

File:‘Statue of Unity’, on the occasion of the Rashtriya Ekta Diwas, at Kevadiya, in Narmada District of Gujarat on October 31, 2018 (1) (cropped).JPG, ''Statue of Unity'', as dedicated on 31 October 2018 File:Statue from highway.jpg, ''Statue of Unity'', as seen from the highway File:Statue lawns.jpg, ''Statue of Unity'', as seen across the lawns File:Statue001.jpg, ''Statue of Unity'', seen from the paved approach walkway File:Statue of Unity - View from the other bank of Narmada.jpg, View from the opposite bank or river Narmada File:Statue of Unity - Close Shot from the other bank of Narmada.jpg, Upper portion of the statue. Viewing gallery at a height of 130m is also seen. File:Statue of Unity Sign Board.jpg, ''Statue of Unity'' sign board across the river File:"STATUE OF UNITY"- Kevadia (Gujarat) becomes a "Land of Billion Lights" at night..webm, ''Statue of Unity'', Kevadia at night File:Statue of Unity in 2018.jpg, Skyline of ''Statue of Unity''

Notes

References

External links

Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Statue Of Unity 2018 establishments in Gujarat Colossal statues in India Architecture in India Memorials to Vallabhbhai Patel Monuments and memorials in Gujarat Narmada district Narmada River Tourist attractions in Gujarat 2018 sculptures Articles containing video clips