The Maharashtra government says that it plans to build a statue off the Mumbai coast to rival New York’s Statue of Liberty. The statue will be of the great Maratha warrior king Shivaji, who is revered for his heroism in defying the Mughal and British forces from the state of Maharashtra. The project will be built for a whopping price of more than $4.5 million, which the critics feel is very expensive.

 

The statue will be built on a man-made island, which will include a museum, library and an amphitheatre. Vishal Dhage, a state government official revealed that the statue will be of the same height as the statue of Liberty, which stands at 305 ft. He further remarked that the state government had been thinking about the project for the past three years and had been working on different short-listed sites. 

A state government appointed committee has selected the off-shore site near Marine Drive. Officials have revealed that the statue will be in bronze and may be built by a sculptor specializing in Shivaji’s statues.