The coordination committee of Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), which is in-charge of building the Statue of Unity, has decided to start collecting iron pieces that will be used in building the 600 ft structure from October 31, birthday of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel.

The collection work will continue till Republic Day on January 26, 2014, said Om Prakash Dhankar, the national coordinator of the committee while addressing a press conference here. This statue of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, is going to be double the length of Statue of liberty in America. Bhumi Poojan on the 20,000 square metre island, which is surrounded by the Sardar Sarovar, a 12 km man-made lake, will be carried out on October 31.

Dhankar said that this is a dream project of BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate and Gujarat Chief Minister Narender Modi. It is going to be a statue of, ‘Iron Man of India’, Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel. The statue will be a symbol of the immense contribution of Patel towards India, and his legendry persona. Patel had unified the 562 princely states of India after which the statute will be named as the Statue of Unity.

The committees have been constituted at state level to collect iron from every household of rural India. Subhash Barala has been appointed in charge of Haryana, Jagtar Saini for Punjab and Purushottam Mahajan from Chandigarh for this noble work. “This statue will be 600 ft high, which would be equal to a 60-storey building and it will represent unity of India. It is going to be the highest statue in the whole world, leaving behind the Spring Temple Buddha at China, Ushiku Daibutsu at Japan, The Motherland Calls at Russia and Christ the Redeemer at Brazil ”, added Dhankar. The BJP has planned to collect the iron from 6.5 lakh farmers of the country to erect the Statue of Unity. The whole project will be completed within a period of six years and State of Gujarat will bear the whole expense.