Scrap iron collected from farmers used in the Statue of Unity, says CM Vijay Rupani

Rupani, who visited the Narmada Dam and the site of the Statue of Unity — slated to be the world’s tallest statue at 182m, expressed satisfaction over the progress of the project.

He told reporters, “Work on the Statue of Unity, the dream project of PM Narendra Modi, is going on at a good speed. The statue will provide employment to locals. The work on the installation of the gates of the dam is also going on a faster pace.”

“We have processed the metal and used about 105 metric tonne of iron to create the reinforcement beams for the statue, which is symbolic of the unity, as per the vision of PM Modi to use metal from across India in the statue,” he further said.

Initially, Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (SSNNL) officials had toyed with the idea of creating a separate memorial out of the scrap as it was of “inferior” quality, with mostly rusted pieces of scrap. However, K V Sanghavi, Statue of Unity chief engineer, project director & director (canals) for SSNNL, said that during the course of the deliberations, it was decided to use the processed iron. Sanghavi told The Indian Express, “Depending upon the metallurgy, things can be added or subtracted from the scrap during the process of extraction. We were able to extract 105 tonne of metal from 135 metric tonne of scrap that was processed.”

Sanghavi added that the project officials felt “it was better” to use the metal to construct the statue instead of a memorial.

The project would also see officials from TQ Art Foundry belonging to Jiangxi Tongqing Company in Nanchang in Eastern China arriving to assist in the cladding of the metal facade during the last stages of the project by the next year.

According to Sanghavi, the metal cladding of the Sardar Patel statue was being manufactured as small panels and those would be assembled through a welding process. “There will be small panels, all cast in China. There, the people will first put it into a wider facade by tech-welding. If it all looks good, it will be sent to India as manageable panels. Here, it will be tech-welded together to form the facade. We will check the geometry at the ground level before finally cladding it to the main statue.”

Sanghavi added that Gurgaon-based sculptor R V Suthar had visited the Chinese casting company to check the texture and the progress of the work.

In his public address later at Garib Kalyan Mela in Rajpipla, where he distributed self-employment kits to several beneficiaries from various talukas of the district, Rupani also announced that the state government had initiated a service to provide hearse to families of poor villagers.

Referring to the incident at Bhawanipatna in Odisha, where a tribal man carried his wife’s body for a distance of 10 km, Rupani said, “After what happened in Odisha, the Gujarat government has decided to make shav vahinis (hearses) available for needy villagers to transport. We will make this facility available in a few days, ahead of Navratri.”