3 quintals of iron for Statue of Unity from DK

Team Udayavani, Oct 31, 2018, 4:47 PM IST

Mangaluru: The undivided Dakshina Kannada (DK) district too has contributed to the world’s tallest Statue of Unity of Sardar Vallabha Bhai Patel that is being unveiled today at Gujarat. The district has provided as much as 3 quintals of iron for the cause.

When the plan for the statue of Patel was created, BJP had decided that the statue should be created with the cooperation of people from all the parts of the county and hence, it came forward to collect iron from all the villages in the country. The collection was conducted in Karavali from January 23^rd to 31^st of 2014. Of the 349 gram panchayats, complete support was not received from some of them. Yet, most of the villages donated 1 kg iron making it a total of 3 quintal.

Kits to collect iron

BJP workers visited a successful farmer of each individual village and collected the iron equipments he used for crop cultivation. At the same time a small programme would be conducted at the home of the farmer. At some places, the iron was brought in a procession to the central location of that Panchayat. In other places, the iron was collected and then given to the central office. Separate kits were given from BJP central office to DK and Udupi offices to collect the iron.

Soil from Karavali

Some villages had collected copper. A few other villages collected and gave soil from traditional or sacred grounds. To conduct the Abhiyan, teams of 60 people for the taluk and teams of 10 people for each GP were created. There was good response from most of the villages’ informed Iron collection DK district committee convener MLA Dr Y Bharat Shetty with Uduayavani.

Handed over in Mangaluru

Before the statue was created, a ‘Run for Unity’ was conducted in Mangaluru on December 15^th 2013. The iron collection was completed in January 2014 and on February 18^th of the same year; the collected iron kit was handed over to Modi at a meeting that was conducted at Mangaluru’s Central Ground.

Moment of celebration

“We have collected iron for the statue of Patel from most of the villages in the undivided Dakshina Kannada district. We are proud of the fact that the tallest statue in the world contains iron from Karavali also,” said Nalin Kumar Kateel MP

Article by Dinesh Ira teanslated into English by Aaron Dmello