Workers at the site downed their tools after not being paid for four months

Staff servicing the world’s tallest statue have gone on strike over unpaid wages barely six months after it was opened to huge fanfare by India’s prime minister.

In a dispute that critics say epitomises Narendra Modi’s failure to tackle a national jobs crisis, about a hundred workers at the Statue of Unity site have downed tools and formed a human chain around the 182m (600ft) landmark. They have not been paid for four months.

The vast bronze, a tribute to the Indian independence leader Sardar Patel, is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty and was inaugurated in October in Gujarat, the prime minister’s home state.

Mr Modi, 68, declared it was “one of the greatest moments in my life”. The assorted gardeners, lift