Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi flagged-off a caravan of 1,000-odd trucks, which fanned out in different directions on a massive pan-India ‘iron tools collection’ drive from seven lakh villages for constructing ‘Statue of Unity’, to commemorate Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s stellar contribution in uniting India at the time of Independence.
These trucks carrying about three-lakh empty kit boxes would visit the villages to collect specimen of soil and scrap-iron farm implements on the basis of prior intimation already sent to 1.87 village panchayats. The soil and scrap iron thus collected will be used in the Statue of Unity project, billed to the world’s tallest statue, to be constructed near the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) dam on an island in River Narmada. The volunteers accompanying the trucks are carrying the message of ‘unity despite disparity’.
Speaking on the occasion, Modi said that the soil is for emotional attachment of people of India, and farm implements as token of farmers’ contribution to the gigantic project. He said that Sardar Patel was also a son of the soil and had led many a Satyagraha by farmers during pre-Independence days.