Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy will unveil the 206-foot tall statue of Dr BR Ambedkar in Vijayawada on Friday, January 19. The 125-foot tall sculpture is installed on an 81-foot pedestal at the Ambedkar Smriti Vanam. The statue has been installed in the historical Swaraj Maidan. The Chief Minister has made an emotional appeal to the people to voluntarily attend the unveiling event. Here’s all you need to about the statue:
> The statue and its surroundings were built at a cost of Rs 404.35 crore, on an 18.81-acre parcel of land.
> The 125-ft statue is made of steel framing and bronze cladding. It is made of 400 metric tonnes of stainless steel and 120 metric tonnes of bronze.
> The pedestal, designed to look like a Kalachakra mandala in Buddhist architecture, is a two-storied trapezium-shaped RCC-framed structure. The pedestal building alone is made of 11,140 cubic metres of concrete and 1445 metric tonnes of TMT, and cladded with pink sandstone.
> The monument has six waterbodies in the forecourt and a musical water fountain at the centre.
> Nearly 500-600 labourers worked on the project on site, along with 55 technical and supporting staff each day for two years.
> It has been built at Vijayawada’s Swaraj Maidan, which is being renamed as Dr BR Ambedkar Swaraj Maidan.
> The area around the statue includes a ‘Dr BR Ambedkar Experience Centre’, a convention centre with seating capacity of 2000, a food court, a children’s play area, water bodies, a musical fountain, and walking pathways.
> The experience centre developed under the statue will have exhibits related to Dr BR Ambedkar's life with electronic displays and projections.
> The structure includes a colonnade with 166 pillars and murals with artwork related to Ambedkar’s life.
> The project began on December 21, 2021, and was initially planned to be inaugurated on April 14, 2023, the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti.
> The installation has been overseen by the Andhra Pradesh government’s Social Welfare Department, with the AP Industries and Infrastructure Corporation Ltd as the executing agency, M/s KPC Projects Ltd as the contractor, and M/s Design Associates as the design agency.
CM Jagan described the statue as the greatest sculpture of social justice that stands as the finest jewel in the crown of not only the state but also the country. “The statue has been installed with great responsibility as the government has been implementing the Navaratnalu welfare schemes with unfettered confidence in his ideology. Dr Ambedkar rebelled against untouchability and the dominant ideology while taking education closer to the oppressed classes,” he said.
CM Jagan said that the presence of Ambedkar statues in every hamlet serves as inspiration that bestows continuous support and courage to the weaker sections. He further said that we are all honouring Dr Ambedkar as his ideology remains the source for the changes witnessed in the lives of Dalits and the poor irrespective of the caste, creed and religion in the last 77 years.
With IANS inputs