STATUE OF UNITY

STATUE OF UNITY is the statue of Indian politician also known as the first founding father and first deputy prime minister of India Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Statue Of Unity

Its height is 182M (including the base of 25M of the statue) which is the twice the size of the STATUE OF LIBERTY, making it world's tallest statue by beating the previous tallest statue of 153M of SPRING TEMPLE OF BUDDHA (CHINA).

The statue is built in the city of Vadodara, Gujarat. It is sculpted by famous Indian Sculptor Mr. Ram Vanji Sutar, a 93-year-old Indian sculpture who also sculpted many statues around the world ( Russia, Italy, France, England, Malaysia).

Ram Vanji Sutar

 It was announced for the first time on 7 October 2010 by Narendra Modi as chief minister of Gujarat. A special purpose vehicle named the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Rashtriya Ekta Trust(SVPRET) was constituted by the Government of Gujarat for executing the project. old used iron, scrap iron was also used to build it rather than using all new one. An overstep drive named the STATUE OF UNITY MOVEMENT was started to support the construction of the statue. It was started to collect the iron needed for the construction of the statue by asking the farmers to donate their used farming instruments. Total 135 metric tonnes of scrap iron had been collected and 1.9 tonnes of it was used to make the foundation of the statue after processing. A marathon RUN FOR UNITY was also held on 15 December 2013 in Surat, Gujarat to support the project. A whopping amount of ₹3000 cr. was spend to build the statue by the government of Gujarat. The statue was built by public partnership model with most of the money being raised by the government of Gujarat. The government of Gujarat allotted ₹600 crore for the project in the budget from 2012 to 2015. in the 2014-15 union budget ₹200 crore was allotted for the construction of the statue, funds were also contributed by public sector units (PSUs) under corporate social responsibility scheme. It took a short span of 42 months to build this statue. There were around 2500 workers working every day on site. The total amount of raw material used to build the statue:-
1. Reinforcement steel- 18000 metric tonnes
2. Bronze plates- 22000 square meters
3. Concrete- 200000 cubic meters
4. Structural steel- 6000 metric tonnes
5. Cement- 70000 metric tonnes

An average of 3000 visitors are expected to visit the statue every day and 800 cars can be easily parked at the venue. A viewing gallery has been built inside the statue at a height of 135M, which can accommodate around 200 people. There are 2 lifts at the bottom which takes the visitors to the viewpoint. The statue can survive an earthquake measuring up to 6.5 on the Richter scale.