world's tallest statue is now in our country. What a proud moment, right? Now the whole world will look at us with respect. lakhs and crores of people will visit the statue and it will promote the tourism industry. This will increase the number of jobs. and what tribute we have given to Sardar Patelji by making his world's tallest statue This is not said by me, this is what we get to hear about the Statue of Unity. So let's look at the various aspects of this statue like economical, cultural, social, political and aspects related to tourism and pride and analyse this statue completely. Let's find out the truth of this statue. The entire cost of this whole project is around 3000 crore rupees. where the approximate cost of only the statue itself is estimated to rupees 1,350 crores. which is 180 million dollars as per today's conversion rate. In comparison to this, the tallest statue in the world so far was The Buddha statue of Spring Temple, China. Now this has become the second tallest statue and the entire cost of this project was 55 million dollars. and just the statue costed 18 million dollars. Just compare that the world's second tallest statue was built in 18 million dollars and world's tallest statue costed 180 million dollars. There's a difference of 10 times here. and if you compare the heights then statue of unity stands tall at 182m whereas the height of Spring Temple, Buddha statue is 128m. So the difference in the heights is not 10 times. so the question here is that what is that special here to have a price difference of 10 times. You can keep inflation in account too. Spring temple Buddha was constructed 10- 15 years ago. But there isn't any significant inflation too and if you look at the statues exteriorly there isn't any significant difference as well. It's not like that the statue of Unity is made up of gold. So the first question rises here is on the statue's economics. Some people might say that all the money used here will get recover in few years through tourism. Let's analyse that too. Friends India's most popular and visited tourist attraction is Taj Mahal Taj Mahal attracts 8 million tourists from worldwide every year. But only 25 crores of rupees is generated yearly as the revenue. If we look in the broad sense and statue of unity gets popular as much as the Taj Mahal then only 25 crore rupees can be earned yearly. That means it will take 120 years to break even the cost of 3000 crore rupees. Let's move into more specifics. Statue of Unity is not Taj Mahal, I don't think that even 10% of all the visitors who visits Taj Mahal can come here. I will be surprised if even 1 million visitors will come at the statue of Unity. I will tell you the reasons for this in the video. But If we assume that even 1 million visitors come to visit the statue of unity and buys the most expensive ticket of 350 rupees to see the observation deck. so 350 rupees multiplied by 1 million is 350 million rupees, so 35 crore rupees statue of unity will generate every year. Assuming all this will even lead to 85 years to recover the cost of the statue. without even including the maintenance cost. and it's very unrealistic to assume that each and everyone who comes to visit the statue will go to the observation deck. as it can even be seen very well from the surrounding areas. Now some people will say why are you only considering the price of the entry tickets, many local business will open there, many restaurants will come in place. many people will get the jobs and more revenue will be generated through the local economy. But if we only wanted to give jobs and open local businesses then there are many ways to use these 3000 crore rupees in better ways. we could have opened skill development centers and there wasn't any need for making this statue. hence while considering the return of investment, I'm only counting on the tickets as the tax money which is been used should go back to the Government's treasury only. then only the return of investment will be calculated correctly. otherwise there wasn't any need of statue we could have opened skill development centers and universities. looking at this, it looks like Govt didn't pay heed towards the profitability of the statue. The presence of this statue is a waste of our tax. In terms of tourism, Statue of Unity will not become an important tourist destination in my opinion. Let me tell you the reasons, First reason is it's location. World's famous attraction is always near some famous cities. Here you can see the list.... All the world's famous attraction is around some big city Statue of Liberty is at New York, Eiffel tower is at Paris. Friends this is a very important reason for the popularity of these two monuments worldwide. and from statue of unity, Ahmedabad is 4 hours away and Mumbai 8 hours away. due to this reason many people will not come to see the statue of unity. second reason is the uniqueness, that is there should be some unique factor in any tourist attraction. which can make it popular, and unfortunately I don't find any such unique thing in the statue of unity. be it's style or the choice of colours or the pose all these things you can see in any ordinary statue. and to say that it's the tallest statue is not something unique. a very good example of this is Spring temple, Buddha. How many of you knew already that this was the world's tallest statue prior to the making of this one? infact even after being the tallest statue it doesn't come under the China's top ten attractions. People prefer visiting the great wall of China, forbidden city, terracotta army when they visit China. There isn't any mention of Spring temple, Buddha. Third reason is beauty- this is not very important but I feel this matters. Statue of unity is not very beautiful or attractive, No offence to Sardarji but if you look at the pose or the construction You can yourself say will you prefer looking at Meenakshi Temple, Ajanta Ellora, Red fort, Taj Mahal or will you prefer watching a statue? these things you will find more beautiful however we always say that beauty lies in the eyes of beholder Write and share how attractive this statue is to you as compared to the other tourist centers. So these are the few reasons why it is going to be flop in terms of tourism. You will be surprised to know friends that 360 monuments comes under ASI. but only 16 monuments has entry tickets to generate the revenue. basic amenities are missing from many monuments. basic services are missing. If these monuments were upgraded and entry tickets are levied the it would have been a great encouragement and return of investment would have been good too. So I feel it would have led to the preservation of the history culture and would have benefited economically too and encouraged tourism as well. That would have been a better use of money. Talking about social and environmental impact, I feel sad to tell you that lakhs of adivasis and villagers had to leave their work for the construction of this statue. Sarpanchs of 22 villages have written letter to Modiji that I would like to read for you. This is what villagers have to say to the Prime minister Modiji. More than 75000 tribals had amass protest on October 31st. No food will be cooked in all the 72 villages around this statue on this day as a protest. Dr. Praful who is a tribal leader says that.... How ironic it is friends, that it's only been destruction done to make this Statue of "Unity" and in the end politics and pride is the last aspect which I feel was the most important reason behind the construction of this statue. This isn't the first time where a politician has used statue for it;s personal benefit. and to play politics. You can see the statue at the Bhopal lake, Mayawati's elephant statues or the statue at the Hussain sagar lake. All these statues are made by the particular politicians considering their own political benefits. and associated it with their pride. Modiji dragged this politics to the extreme and decided to make the world's tallest statue. Later if someone asks what has Modiji done in these 5 years then it can be said that World's tallest statue was constructed by him reaching till the top It is said that we have given a big tribute to Sardar Vallabh bhai Patel, the freedom fighter who was neglected by Congress since many years. But the truth is that it's just another way to distort history and play politics. If you studies in school like myself then you would know who is Sardar Patelji and why is called as the Iron man of India and his contribution towards uniting the country. I feel here somewhere Modiji wants to associate his image with sardar Patelji. and to bring out the political benefits. so one thing I would like to remind you friends, a thing which all the BJP leaders would want to hide from you. It's the thoughts of Sardar Patelji about RSS. He had said.... after these words, sardar Patelji had banned RSS from India. Later he unbanned RSS under the condition that RSS would never interfere in the politics. A cultural organisation should remain just as a cultural organisation only. Irony is that our Prime Minister who himself has come from RSS is inaugurating Sardar Patelji's statue now. On top of this if you have ever read about Sardar Patelji in depth then you will know that if he would have been here today he would have never let such statue to be made. he would have never let the wastage of this much amount of money in any way. So there is no logic in any debate regarding the pride here. What kind of tribute is it which would have been disliked by the person getting the tribute himself?
Comments
Post a Comment