While the Culture Department has so far installed statues of 73 legendary persons in the capital city and other places, the number includes the highest 10 statues of Biju Patnaik followed by three of Dr Harekrushna Mahtab.
This was revealed from the information furnished by Culture Minister Ashok Chandra Panda in the State Assembly in response to a question of BJP MlA Dilip Ray on Friday.
While all of 10 Biju Patnaik statues have been installed at different times after the year 2002, five of them are in Bhubaneswar, four at other places in the State and one at UB High School, Titagarh in West Bengal. While the last statue of the legendary was installed at the Police Academy here on July 2, 2017, prior to this an 18-foot statue had been opened near the city airport on March 5, 20016.
Similarly, the three statues of Mahtab are in the capital city, according to the information.
The other statues installed by the Culture Department include that of Swami Vivekananda, Jaya Prakash Narayan and Netaji Subhas Bose and the State’s other luminaries.
The Minister too informed that the Government had decided to install statues of eight more legendaries during the current year for which Rs 1 crore has been allocated. Statues of Utkalmani Gopabandhu Das, Karmaveer Gouri Sankar Ray, Mahatma Gandhi Pada Yatra, Kuntala Kumari Sabat, Satyanarayan Rajguru, Kali Charan Pattnaik, Madhusundar Das and Pandit Raghunath Murmu will be installed at different places, the Minister said.
By now, birthdays and death anniversaries of 81 legendaries of different fields are being observed separately by the Odisha Sahitya Akademi (54), OOdisha Sangeet Natak Akademi (13) and Odisha lalita Kala Akademi functioning under the Culture Department, informed Panda.