Mumbai, July 16: The Maharashtra government has proposed some changes to reduce the cost of constructing the proposed Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Memorial in the Arabian Sea off Mumbai. As per the proposed design, the height of the Shivaji statue will be 7.5 metres, shorter than initially intended. However, the sword the statue wields will be taller than what was proposed in the original design.

The Maharashtra government had initially proposed the statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji 121.2 metres tall. The sculpture of the warrior king on his horse was to be made 83.2 metres tall with a 38-metre sword. However, under the newly-proposed plan, the height of the sculpture has been reduced to 75.7 metres, and the length of the sword raised to 45.5 metres, maintaining the statue height of 121.2 metres.

The proposed changes have reduced the use of bronze, tertiary steel elements and armature in the making of the Shivaji memorial, thus, providing a cost reduction of Rs 338.94 crore, reported Indian Express. Earlier, opposition parties had alleged the state government had reduced the height of the Shivaji statute to cut costs. However, the government refuted the allegations, maintaining that the height of the statue remains 121.2 metres.

The total height of the project would be 212 metres, making it the tallest statue in the world. In March,  infra-major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) had drastically slashed the estimated project cost for the proposed memorial and consequently was awarded the Letter of Acceptance (LoA) by Maharashtra government.

Interestingly, the latest figure agreed upon by L&T roughly equaled the estimates prepared by the state government for the first phase of the project.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 16, 2018 03:29 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).