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India is about to spend a ridiculous $530 million on a statue in the middle of the Arabian sea


Rohit S. Ambani

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India’s love for its heroes is an expensive affair.

On Saturday (Dec. 24), India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, will fly down to Mumbai to lay the foundation stone for a Rs3,600 crore ($530 million) memorial for Chhatrapati Shivaji, the much-celebrated 16th century ruler of the Maratha empire. The 192-metre-tall structure— twice as high as the Statue of Liberty—will be built on 16 hectares of reclaimed land in the Arabian sea, some 3.5 kilometres away from Mumbai.

“Shiv Smarak (the memorial) in the Arabian Sea will be the tallest memorial not only in the country but in the entire world,” Devendra Fadnavis, the chief minister of Maharashtra, proudly said on Dec. 20.

But for all the statue’s world-beating dimensions, there are nagging questions over the ridiculous amount of taxpayers’ money likely to be spent on the project. The Maharashtra state government will fund the entire project and has already set aside Rs2,300 crore for the first phase of construction.

“This is tax-payers’ money and I am sure we would all like this money to be spent on something better—education, infrastructure, food…anything but a statue that is of no use to anyone,”a petition signed by 18,500 people on Change.org said. “This is not what Shivaji would have wanted and I am sure we can find other ways to honour him.”

Earlier, a group of marine conservationists and fishermen, too, had filed a petition with India’s National Green Tribunal (NGT) seeking to stop the state government from constructing the project. The NGT had sought a response from the state, following which the Maharashtra government asked the tribunal to dismiss the petition as it had all the necessary environmental clearances in place.

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There is nothing wrong with honouring their history through monuments .They stand the test of time and gives the future generations lot of pride in their history and culture imo.

Can kinda understand and relate to it.

We build something similar for our legendary poet Thiruvalluvar in Indian ocean in Kanyakumari which most of us now look it up as a symbol of Tamil pride .

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Ha, ha, ha the bjp bhakts who used to bash Mayawati etc are now praising this move. There is no hope for this country.  Wasting half a billion dollars for a statue in India. I am surprised people who admire Shivaji do not realize that this is the last thing he would himself want

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2 hours ago, New guy said:

Ha, ha, ha the bjp bhakts who used to bash Mayawati etc are now praising this move. There is no hope for this country.  Wasting half a billion dollars for a statue in India. I am surprised people who admire Shivaji do not realize that this is the last thing he would himself want

how do you know that? or is that a generic throwaway line?

 

For the record, I am against the statue.

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Ha, ha, ha the bjp bhakts who used to bash Mayawati etc are now praising this move. There is no hope for this country.  Wasting half a billion dollars for a statue in India. I am surprised people who admire Shivaji do not realize that this is the last thing he would himself want

I dont see Modi making a statue if himself and installing it.

Btw these kind of memorials are tourist attaractions.Like the statue of christ the redeemer at Rio.

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I think the issue is Mumbai has already many prominent Shivaji statues. One at the airport for eg. There is no doubt Shivaji maharaj was the most prominent marathi individuals in the last 500 years. But surely there are others as well? Would love a prominent place named just after sardar Angre.

 

As a state Maharashtra is facing a big fiscal deficit which means cut backs are being made elsewhere on top  of which we are supposed to chip in for the bullet train (a project i support but it still costs money) plus there is the immediate drop in revenue for an industrial state due to the GST (another policy i support). In these times imo this project was not needed or they could have scaled back the grandness.

 

Now if this thing becomes a tourist attraction then fair enough. But I dont see it being that. IMO this is vote bank politics to made inroads in the Sena vote close to the BMC elections and get on the right side of the Maratha reservation uprising. 

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Look i think even the state has to take a gamble somewhere when it comes to infra. Money is not unlimited. It does hold the same logic as making a film.

 

You look at the project in mumbai the bandra kurla sea link and commercially its a flop. On the flip side the Mumbai pune expressway commercially is a hit. So even the state does have to make choices on projects. Its just in this case I look at this project and feel its a flop or a waste of money.

 

These big projects have not worked out for Mumbai. Rather the smaller to medium scale projects have been well executed by the state

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and coming to where this money could have been spent.

 

Mumbai metro 1 took 10 years to build like 11km. One of the reasons for that was it was build overground through a congested area. So surely this extra money could have been used to build it underground and save time.

 

Modiji has opened up 2 metro lines and i welcome that, but if it follows the same pace as metro 1 line you are looking at 2030 by the time these projects are executed fully.

 

 

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