New Delhi: An engineering marvel completed in a record time of 33 months, the world’s tallest statue—Sardar Patel’s statue or the Statue of Unity—was inaugurated during a gala function on Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s birth anniversary today on 31 October. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had laid the foundation stone for the project on 31 October 2013, was also the one to inaugurate it on Wednesday.

Double the height of the Statue of Liberty in New York, the Sardar Patel statue near the Narmada Dam in Gujarat is not only the tallest in the world but also the one to be completed in the shortest time. The 182-metre Statue of Unity took 33 months to complete while China’s Spring Temple Buddha statue took 11 years.

View Full Image Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the inauguration of Sardar Patel’s Statue of Unity in Gujarat’s Narmada district.

Here is a list of 10 interesting features of the Sardar Patel statue in Gujarat:

1. Built by Larsen & Toubro Ltd at a cost of ₹ 2,989 crore, the Statue of Unity is made up of 1,700 tonnes of bronze and 1,850 tonnes of bronze cladding on the exterior. The interior is filled with concrete cement (180,000 cubic metres), reinforced steel (18,500 tonnes) and structured steel (6,500 tonnes).

2. If you are about 5.6 feet tall, the giant State of Unity is 100 times larger than you.

3. There are two high-speed passenger elevators in the statue’s core which take you up to the chest of the statue to a viewing gallery, which can accommodate 200 tourists at a time. This is also the best place to get a bird’s eye view of the picturesque environs of the Narmada river and its dam surrounded by the Satpura and Vindhyachal hills.

4. With a three-star hotel, museum and audio visual gallery, the government has tried to build an entire ecosystem of tourism infrastructure centered on the statue in the remote, hilly terrain.

5. The construction of the Sardar Patel statue has had its own engineering challenges, not just due to its height but also because of its location in the middle of the Narmada river and the walking pose of Sardar Vallabhai Patel. The statue is designed to withstand winds of almost 180km/hour and earthquakes measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale.

6. Noida-based sculptor Ram V. Sutar, who designed the statue, took special care to ensure that the statue’s face resembles Patel’s facial features. For the process, around 2,000 photographs from archives were studied. Historians and people who had seen the “Iron Man" were also consulted. From a distance, it appears as if Sardar Patel is walking on water towards the Sardar Sarovar dam.

View Full Image The headmen of 22 villages have situated near the Sardar Sarovar dam have written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi stating that villagers would not welcome him at the inauguration of the Statue of Unity on October 31.

7. The Gujarat government is also building a 3.5km long highway for tourists to reach the statue from Kevadia town.

8. A 320-metre-long designer bridge connects Sadhu island to the mainland. You can also take a boat ride.

9. Around 135 metric tonnes of iron were crowdsourced from lakhs of villages all over India for use in the project.

10. Clicking images at the statue site will be easier with a selfie point that has a good vantage point for photography.

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