(Image source from: Livemint)

Statue of Unity, the world's tallest statue in Gujarat built by Larsen & Toubro, has entered the globally-acclaimed 2019 World Architecture News (WAN) Awards, an official said here on Tuesday.

The WAN Awards showcase the best international design in current and future projects, and the award ceremony is likely to be held in July.

The statue was built as a memorial to the contributions of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in the country's freedom struggle and the stellar role he played in unifying the country into a nation. Constructed in a record 33 months, the world's tallest statue stands at 182 meter (597 feet).

"This is a significant and deserving recognition of India's engineering skill and project management," S.N. Subrahmanyan, CEO, and MD of L&T, said on the recognition for the Indian-made engineering marvel.

"The Statue of Unity was by far one of the most complex and challenging assignments we have executed and being featured along with several other global engineering marvels is a truly remarkable achievement, not only for L&T but for the entire nation," he added.

A staggering 6,500 tonnes of structural steel, 18,500 tonnes of reinforced steel, 210,000 tonnes of concrete and 1,700 tonnes of bronze cladding went into the making of the statue by an army of over 4,500 designers, architects, global consultants, engineers, and workmen.

L&T's Whole Time Director and Senior Executive Vice-President M.V. Satish said the Statue of Unity is not only a triumph of teamwork but also of digitalization.

"We were operating in extremely tough terrain and hence used a range of geospatial technologies like DGNSS, terrestrial LiDAR, drone-based photogrammetry for our geological surveys and sonar for the hydrographic survey. Every one of the 6,500-odd bronze panels was RFID-tagged that rendered assembly and erection much easier," Satish added.

The Statue of Unity, one of the few man-made objects visible from space, is situated on Sadhu Bet, 3.2 km downstream from the Narmada Dam, comprising a complex with a museum, a memorial garden, a designer bridge connecting Sadhu Island with the mainland along the Narmada River, an internal five km-long roadway, an administrative complex, a conference center, and a star-rated hotel.

At its height of 182 meters, it is twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty in New York, 100 times larger than a normal human being, and at 70 feet, Sardar Patel's face is bigger than the faces of the United States Presidents cut out on Mount Rushmore in the U.S.

The Statue of Unity is built to withstand winds of up to 290 kmph and earthquakes of up to 6.5-magnitude on the Richter scale.

By Sowmya Sangam