125-foot Ambedkar statue to be ready for opening in Hyderabad by April 14 Premium

The statue will be ready by end of February and it will be inaugurated on April 14, the birth anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar

Between the Prasads Multiplex and the Hussainsagar Lake, the boom of a 150-feet tall crane swings and hoists into place pieces of metal from the floor to the sky. Massive pieces of metal, some weighing five tonnes to the heaviest weighing 25 tonnes, are moved into position.

The result: the fringes of the suit of B.R. Ambedkar can be seen by motorists travelling on the Necklace Road. “The statue will be ready by end of February and it will be inaugurated on April 14, the birth anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar,” says Jitendra Singh, project officer of the engineering team that is building the structure.

It is not just the weight, but the scale of the pieces some as large as two metres by five metres that shows the challenge of the project. “Sixty per cent of the work is completed. It is like a giant puzzle with pieces to be assembled on schedule. When you break it down into segments it is easy,” says Mr. Singh as he supervises plasma cutting of the steel innards of the statue.

Inside the project office, there is a schedule of the ongoing work. On one side is the chart of progress mapped every three days for the inner core and the outer skin. Also marked is the progress on the ground about casting, material despatch, alignment, and welding. It is an aggressive time-frame with deadlines for assembling the stainless steel armature and the bronze frame with the final piece of the hand put in place on February 28, 2023. 

The base of the building has a red sandstone cladding similar to the one that is now part of the new Secretariat building which is familiar to many Raj era structures in New Delhi that line the Rajpath. The initial plan by the government was to house an aquarium, a recreation space and a museum dedicated to the life and times of Dr. Ambedkar in the space under the statue. Considering that the statue is going to be a landmark, there is a spot marked out for selfies.

The initial plan of a large park surrounding the base of the statue has been tweaked as a chunk of the land is being used for creating the VIP stand for the Formula-E races planned in the area.

The scaled drawing of the statue shows a familiar image of the architect of Indian Constitution holding the book in his left hand with the raised pointed right finger in the air. According to academics, the particular design has become popular after Bharat Ratna was posthumously conferred on Dr. Ambedkar in 1990. Incidentally, Design Associates, which is executing the project in Hyderabad, is also building a whopping 450-feet tall statue of Ambedkar in Mumbai in a similar pose.