Indian PM unveils Statue of Unity, world's tallest at 182 meters

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the ‘Statue of Unity’ in Gujarat on the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Standing 182 meters tall, this statue is almost twice the height of the iconic statue of Liberty in New York. The statue is located around 3.5 km downstream from the Sardar Sarovar Dam, on islet Sadhu Bet on the bed of the river Narmada.

Sculpted by 93-year-old acclaimed sculptor Padma Bhushan Ram V. Suthar, the statue cost a whopping 29.9bn rupees.

While construction began on December 19, 2015, it took 34 months to complete the statue with 70,000 tonnes of cement, 18,500 tonnes of reinforcement steel, 6,000 tonnes of structural steel and 1,700 metric tonnes of bronze, which was used for the outer cladding of the structure, according to a government statement.

The statue has been engineered to withstand wind speeds of up to 50 m per second (almost 180 km per hour wind speed)Other challenges included doing justice to a legend’s statue, as opposed to that of an imaginary figure. “We evolved the design of the statue by using various techniques. We collected around 2,000 photographs from archives and zeroed in on one photograph, after consulting multiple stakeholders like historians and people who had seen Sardar. We used technology to convert the 2-dimensional photograph into a 3-dimensional model,” L&T said.

The statue is divided into five zones - Up to its shin is the first zone, comprising three levels, including an exhibit floor, mezzanine and roof. This zone will contain a Memorial Garden and a large museum. Zone 2 extends up to the statue’s thighs at 149 metres, while Zone 3 goes up to the viewing gallery at 153 metres. Zone 4 comprises the maintenance area and Zone 5 the head and shoulders.The viewing gallery at the height of 135 metres can accommodate up to 200 people at a time.