State govt to appoint consultant for mid-sea Shivaji memorial

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“The project management consultant will draw a detailed design for the memorial, as well as supervise the implementation process. The consultant will submit a detailed plan in at least three months. We will have an exact idea about the project cost only once the consultant submits plans,” said Vinayak Mete, a pro-Maratha reservation leader from Shivsangram Party.

The state government has appointed Mete to chair a coordination committee for the memorial of the Maratha warrior king. The consultant is to be paid Rs 83 crore.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis held a review meeting for the project Wednesday with Mete, Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, Industries Minister Subhash Desai and several senior bureaucrats. Following the meeting, the government decided to appoint a consortium led by Egis India Consulting Engineers as the project management consultant, with the consortium being the lowest bidder with the best technical qualifications, Mete said. There were a total of five consortia in the running.

“Simultaneously, we have also decided to invite tenders for construction of a jetty to reach the memorial and work on the boundary wall within the next couple of months,” added Mete.

The memorial, estimated to cost Rs 1,900 crore, is proposed to come up on an islet in the Arabian Sea. It will boast the world’s tallest statue – a 192-metre statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji, surrounded by an art museum showcasing artefacts from the Maratha king’s era, an amphitheatre, auditorium, exhibition gallery, an aquarium flanked by several viewing galliers, landscaped gardens and other features.

The project was originally conceived in the 1980s and has been a talking point for all political parties before elections.

So far, the government had gone through three failed rounds of tendering to appoint a project management consultant. While the first two rounds by the state received tepid responses, in the third round, the chosen consultant backed out over differences with the government.