The statue of unity: Can it become the new magnet of tourism for India?

History shows that once-in-a-lifetime structures like the Statue of Unity create opportunities around them, especially in tourism, that create a positive return on investment in just a few decades

Current Affair| The Statue of Unity will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi tomorrow. Located facing the Narmada Dam, 3.2 kilometres away on the river island called Sadhu Bet near Rajpipla in Gujarat, the monument along with its surroundings occupies over 20,000 square metres, and is surrounded by a 12-sq-km artificial lake.|BS|It is the world’s tallest statue with a height of 182 metres (597 feet). The Statue of Unity is almost 100 feet taller than China’s Spring Temple Buddha, the world’s current tallest statue at 502 feet. The Sardar Patel statue will be almost twice as high as the Statue of Liberty in New York, which is 305 feet tall. The Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square, checking in at a mere 170 feet height, is almost tiny when compared to the new wonder in Gujarat.

The Statue of Unity surely deserves a place in the history of the world. It joins an impressive list of manmade structures that have earned the admiration of the world through generations. The Tower of Jericho came up on the West Bank in about 8000 BC. It was 28 feet high, but was at that time the tallest structure made by man in the world. Mankind progressed significantly over the next 5,000 years. The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt that was constructed in 2560 BC was 481 feet tall. 

 In the modern era, the distinction for heights obviously belongs to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the tallest building in the world, at 2,722 feet high. By comparison, the Washington Monument in Washington DC is 555 feet high; the Eiffel Tower in Paris is 986 feet high; the Empire State Building in New York is 1,250 feet high. Not all the comparisons are apple-to-apple but the Statue of Unity is surely a marvel of Modern India and puts India on the tourism map of the world. 

The massive Statue of Sardar Patel has cost somewhere in the vicinity of Rs 30 billion. There has been much debate about whether the money spent in celebrating and commemorating the memory of India’s Iron Man (Business Standard) could have been better spent on other projects more directly beneficial to the common man. But history shows that once-in-a-lifetime structures such as the Statue of Unity create opportunities around them especially in terms of tourism, that create a positive return on investment in just a few decades.