A 14-feet-tall statue of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, made using waste material, will be erected in Bangalore soon. Artists Katuru Venkateswara Rao and his son Katuru Ravi from Tenali in Guntur district created the statue together. They started building the 14-feet-tall statue two months ago and it is now finally ready for shipment and installation and will be erected in the city shortly.
When contacted regarding the statue, Mr. Venkateswara Rao said that each scrap sculpture was made using waste thrown away by automobile companies and it weighs more than a tonne. The work of making the statue was initially started with the help of nuts and bolts. Metal chains, cogs, wheels, rods, sheets, nuts, bolts and other broken scrap metal pieces were then used in the sculpture. “For Mr. Modi’s statue, we used GI wire also for a better look. His spectacles, hairstyle and beard needed material like GI wires,” he said to The Hindu.
Along with the father-son duo, a team of 10 members helped in welding and other work to make this statue and it took more than 600 hours to complete this piece of art.
“Usually, statues with perfect features are not made in scrap art unlike in bronze statues. It is difficult to bring out the facial features with available scrap. Our efforts began with a statue of Mahatma Gandhi. Around 75,000 nuts and bolts were used in Gandhiji’s statue. Prime Minister Modi’s is the second such statue. About two tonnes of scrap, which includes gear wheels, washers, bolts and nuts, was used to make the statue,” Mr. Ravi further explained.
BJP corporator Mohan Raju placed the order and financed the erection of the statue of PM Narendra Modi
Mr. Venkateswara Rao said that they visited scrap dealers in Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Guntur and Chennai to collect the material. “We mostly depend on shops in Guntur as all varieties of scrap are available there. We have to sift through mountains of junk to find suitable pieces,” he said.
Tenali legislator Annabattu Sivakumar came to know about this statue and visited their workshop. He specially congratulated the duo for bringing international fame to Tenali and the sculptors were then asked to design more such statues.
The statue is said to be moving to Bangalore city on the 16th of this month.
(With inputs from The Hindu).
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