World’s Tallest ‘Statue of Unity’ Now in India

Creating a record for itself, India is now home to the ‘world tallest statue’, the ‘Statue of Unity’!

India has constructed a 183 m (600 ft) statue as a tribute to the country’s Iron Man Sardar Vallabhai Patel, who was responsible for the unification of India’s erstwhile princely states.

The ‘Statue of Unity’ is built against the scintillating view of the Vindhyachal & Satpura mountain range and the Narmada river in Gujarat. It features the iconic national figure Patel walking on the Narmada river towards the Sardar Sarovar dam.

The statue was inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 31, 2018, the Birth Anniversary of the legendary Patel.

Interestingly, Modi laid the foundation stone for this iconic sculpture on the same day five years ago.

Statue of Unity — Construction and Design
In terms of design and execution, the statue posed a great challenge to experts who had to consider aspects like location, height and pose.

Starting from the core, the statue is made of 210,000 cu mt of concrete, 18,500 tons of reinforced steel and 6,500 tons of structural steel.

Additionally, the statue is filled with 1,700 tons of bronze and is clad with 1850 tons of bronze.

Facts Behind the Making of the Statue

• A team of over 3,000 workers and 250 engineers were employed in the making of this tall figure
• Famous Noida sculptor Ram V was contracted to come up with matching features and body parts of Patel
• Ram went through 2,000 archival photos of Patel and spoke to several historians to come up with the final version of the iconic figure
• The statue is built to withstand heavy winds of up to 130 km per hour and earthquakes up to 6.5 on Richter scale
• Engineers used two 250-ton mass dumpers to keep the structure strongly rooted
• Engineers adopted sophisticated technology such as light detection, ranging technology, telescopic logging, several stages of mock up, 3D scanning and computer numerical control production to ensure an accurate replica of Patel