Statue of Unity- Is this all what India needs???

 



While Gujarat and some of its prominent political leaders are taking pride in the recently laid foundation stone of the “Statue of Unity” on 31 October 2013, the 138th birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel- “Iron Man of India”, I would like to raise a question- “Is this the need of the hour? Is this all that India needs?

The Statue of Unity is a proposed 182 metres (597 ft) monument of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel that will be created directly facing the Narmada Dam, 3.2 km away on the river island called Sadhu Bet of Narmada River, near Bharuch in Gujarat. The project was first announced on October 7, 2010. The total height of the statue from its base will be 240 metre consisting base level of 58 metre and statue of 182 metre. It will be constructed with steel framing, reinforced cement concrete and bronze coating. A consortium of Turner Construction (consultant of Burj Khalifa), Michael Graves and Associates and Meinhardt Group, will supervise the project. It will take 56 months to complete the project, 15 months for planning, 40 months for construction and two months for handing over by the consortium. The entire project (the statute and other buildings including the memorial, visitor centre, garden, hotel, convention centre, amusement park and research institute) would cost about Rs. 2500 crores. The first phase of the project, including construction of the main statue, a bridge connecting the statue to the river bank and reconstruction of the 12 km road along the river banks is estimated to cost Rs. 2063 crores.

The Statue of Unity will be double the height of the Statue of Liberty in the USA and five times taller than the Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The construction is estimated to cost Rs 2063 crores, and will be completed in four years. The proposed 182-meter tall Sardar Patel's statue will be erected on a small rocky island in the middle of the Narmada riverbed facing Sardar Sarovar Dam at Kevadia. The iron needed for this statue and other structures will be collected from farmers of villages all around India in a form of donation of their used farming instruments. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Rashtriya Ekta Trust set up 36 offices across India to collect this iron instruments till the construction starts on January 26, 2014.

The question that is raised is when the country and its states are facing problems like poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, inflation and recessions etc. Is it necessary at all to invest such a huge amount of money in building up of such monument that would in no ways directly help towards the development or progress of the nation? The only revenue that the statue would generate is from the tourism department which would directly go into the government funds and not into the hands of common people. Is this what Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel ever dreamed of? The numbers of poor families in Gujarat’s villages have risen by at least 30 per cent over the last decade, going by the state government's own data. In April 2000, there were 23.29 lakh Below Poverty Line (BPL) families in the villages. The number rose to 30.49 lakh as on June 26, 2012, as per the "dynamic list" which the state rural development commissioner's office constantly updates. The highest numbers of poor families were in the tribal districts of Narmada (72.45%), Dahod (71.75%), Dangs (70.14%) and the Panchmahals (50.73%). Even some local people have opposed land acquisition for tourism infrastructure development around the statue. They also claimed that Sadhu bet was originally called Varata Bawa Tekri, named after a local deity and so it was a site of religious importance. People of Kevadia, Kothi, Waghadia, Limbdi, Navagam and Gora villages opposed the construction of the statue demanding back land rights of formerly acquired 927 acres of land for dam and the formation of Garudeshwar taluka.

We live in a country where we have a lot of roads, monuments, Char- Rasta’s (Crossroads), government buildings named after national and political leaders in their honour. We have respect for them in our hearts and even follow their ideologies at least some of them if not all. Still spending such huge amount of money over such monuments causes a hindrance towards the development of society. With the likes of CWG and Adarsh Scams around the corner the common peoples’ faith over such projects seems fading. Instead of such investments implementing of the “Food Security Bill” or any such schemes and programmes for the development and progress of society would be helpful. At least the effect of this can be seen and the common people can access the benefits of the same directly. The most common question that needs to be asked commonly by the common people is: “The Statue of Unity- Is this all that India needs???”