Nearly 4 months after a 35-feet tall statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj collapsed at Rajkot fort in Malvan in Maharashtra’s Sindhudurg district, triggering a large political slugfest within the state, the Maharashtra authorities has awarded the contract of constructing a brand new 60-feet statue of the Maratha warrior king on the fort to famend sculptor Ram Sutar and Anil Sutar’s agency Ram Sutar Artwork Creations Pvt Ltd that constructed the ‘Statue of Unity’ in Gujarat.
In August this yr, the 35-feet statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj at Rajkot fort collapsed, nearly seven months after it was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in December 2023. Nearly a month after the collapse, the state Public Works Division (PWD) had floated a young to construct a brand new 60-feet tall statue at an estimated price of Rs 20 crore and for choosing the contractor for design, engineering, procurement, development, erection, operation and upkeep of the statue.
The PWD obtained bids from two companies, Garnet Interiors and Ram Sutar Artwork Creations Pvt Ltd.
Garnet Interiors had quoted Rs 20.90 crore, whereas Ram Sutar Artwork Creations Pvt Ltd made a citation of Rs 36.05 crore. Nonetheless, the contract was awarded to Ram Sutar’s agency after it matched the citation of the opposite bidder and the work order has been issued to Sutar’s agency for ` 20.95 crore.
“As per the tender situation, at the same time as Sutar’s bid was greater than the opposite agency, later throughout negotiations the agency agreed to match with the L1’s costing and therefore it has been awarded to the agency,” a PWD official mentioned, confirming that the work order has been given to Ram Sutar Arts Creations and the statue should be accomplished inside six months. When contacted, Anil Sutar confirmed the work order has been issued to his agency and that the statue can be 60-feet tall and fabricated from bronze metallic with 8-mm thick cladding.
In line with officers, the statue will probably be 60-feet excessive from toe to go and can have a robust pedestal of 3-metre excessive fabricated from concrete. The tender doc says that the statue can have 100 years’ assure and the contractor should perform upkeep and restore of the statue for the subsequent 10 years after its development.
An official mentioned that originally, a 3-feet fibre mannequin will probably be created and as soon as accredited by the Arts Directorate, will probably be taken up for precise development. “The mission will probably be executed underneath the steerage of IIT-Bombay and skilled businesses will probably be given the duty of constructing the statue. A number of specialists would even be roped in to make sure that the statue is robust,” an official mentioned.
The agency Ram Sutar Artwork Creations Pvt Ltd is headed by administrators sculptor Ram V Sutar (Padmashree) and his son Anil R Sutar, knowledgeable architect and sculptor. Moreover making the world’s tallest statue, ‘Statue of Unity’ (182-metres), Sutar’s bust of Mahatma Gandhi has been extremely appreciated and has been chosen for set up in additional than 450 cities everywhere in the world.
The Sindhudurg police had registered an FIR towards the sculptor and structural marketing consultant underneath sections of the BNS associated to try to commit culpable murder, act endangering the life or private security of others, try and homicide in addition to dishonest. The FIR towards Jaideep Apte (sculptor) the proprietor M/s Artistry and Dr Chetan S Patil, structural marketing consultant of the statue, was based mostly on a criticism filed by Ajit Patil, assistant engineer of PWD.
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