Report by Swasti Sharma
Mr. Narendra Modi, the Prime minister of India inaugurated the ‘Kartavya Path’ at India Gate on Thursday.
This was done as a part of the Central Vista redevelopment project (Central vista is India’s central administrative area located in New Delhi).
The road from Rashtrapati Bhavan to India Gate, earlier called Rajpath, has been renamed Kartavya Path with a plea that the name Rajpath symbolised the slavery whereas the name Kartavya path will energize and inspire the population of India.
In addition to this, a statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose has been installed in the canopy of India Gate to pay tribute to his contribution in the freedom struggle of India.
The statue has been carved from a monolithic block of granite weighing 280 MT (1Mt = 1 million kgs).
A 100 feet long truck with 140 wheels was specially designed for this granite stone to travel 1665 km distance from Telangana to New Delhi. This granite monolith of 65 Mt is the result of 26000 person hours of labour.
This statue is completely hand sculpted using traditional techniques with modern tools. The main sculptor of this statue is Mr. Arun Yogiraj.
The canopy under which it has been placed previously featured a bust of Britain’s King George V, this was removed in 1968. For several years, the canopy featured Amar Jawan Jyoti which was later merged with the flame of the National War Memorial torch.