Highlights
- The monolithic block of granite for Netaji's statue was transported on a 140-wheeled truck.
- It was transported from Telangana's Khamam to the national capital, and it took 72 hours.
- The massive truck was specially designed to carry the granite block from Telangana to NGMA.
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose statue: The monolithic block of granite for Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's 100-feet statue was transported from Telangana's Khamam to the national capital on a 140-wheeled truck. Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the statue on Thursday (September 8), that sits in historic canopy in front of the India Gate.
The massive truck was specially designed to carry the granite block from Telangana to the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA)-- a distance of 1,665 kilometres, the Culture Ministry earlier said.
Some of the toll plaza gates on highways had to be "temporarily dismantled" to allow passage to the monolithic stone. Rajat Mehta, director of Delhi-based Granite Studio India, which supplied the telephone black stone sourced from a quarry in Khammam in Telangana, said a "makeshift road" had to be built to move it from the quarry to a highway for transportation.
The truck had four drivers, who took turns to drive it day and night, and "a pilot vehicle from our studio" accompanied it, he said.
"Another issue was that these huge trucks generally ply during night time when the road temperature is lower. But, as it travelled during day time too, many tyres got burst due to heat. As many as 42 tyres of the 100-ft-long truck burst on the way and 72 hours were lost due to this. The truck passed through five states to reach Delhi," he said.
The prime minister had on January 21 assured that a grand statue of Netaji made of granite will be installed at India Gate as a symbol of the nation's "indebtedness" to him.
As Modi unveiled the statue of Bose on Thursday evening, the tune of 'Kadam Kadam Badhayeja', the traditional song of the Indian National Army (INA), played in the background.
(With PTI Inputs)