Chief minister Narendra Modi wants to give India’s Iron Man an iconic stature that literally towers over all of the globe’s statues. He is learnt to have approved a proposal, floated by Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL) chairman D Rajagopalan, to construct the world’s tallest statue, as a tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. At 180 metres, it will be eight metres taller than the earth’s highest statue of Crazy Horse Memorial sculpture being carved in Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, a state in north central US.“The Sardar’s statue is proposed to be built in the Narmada river, about three kilometres downstream the Narmada dam,” a top source close to Modi said. “It will be 40 metres higher than the dam’s full reservoir level, 138.64 metres.” It has been proposed that the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology University will carry out a detailed study of the topography of the river and report if such a huge structure can be installed there. Sources said Rajagopalan made a presentation to the CM on the statue, on the basis of a proposal he received from an architect-friend from Pune. The architect had proposed to carve out the statue on a nearby mountain in the same way as is being done in South Dakota. However, since there are no tall mountains near the Narmada dam, three options next to the dam were considered. One of them is next to the dam in the garden, and two others are in the riverbed. There is no exact estimate as to how much the statue would cost, but sources said it could run into hundreds of crores. It has to have a very wide base and would have to be connected with a bridge so that tourists could reach up to the statue, said an official. “According to the presentation, there would have to be a lift that will carry tourists right to the top in order to see the dam from afar,” he said.
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