Rowena D’Souza

After much delay, the Maharashtra government has decided to start work on the Chhatrapati Shivaji memorial on October 15. The project has been delayed for several reasons, such as environmental permissions and finding a suitable location.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who held a meeting with officials on Tuesday, told them to expedite memorial-related work. “The CM said that the tendering process should be completed as early as possible and work should start on October 15. The plan for the memorial is ready with the government and soon technical formalities would start,” an official who attended the meeting said.

The state government had announced that the Shivaji Maharaj memorial in the Arabian Sea would be completed by 2019. It would be the tallest statue in the world and would be constructed on an island, spread over 42 acres. The state government is also planning to make five ferry service points for visitors from the Gateway of India, Marine Drive, Navi Mumbai, Versova and Sewri. The cost of the project is around '2,000 crore, of which the state has made a budgetary provision of Rs 900 crore.

“All the 12 clearances required for the memorial have been granted. The state government has already announced that the Shivaji Maharaj memorial will be completed by 2019. Once the work starts, the memorial will be completed in 40 months,” the official said. The prime minister was supposed to lay the foundation stone for the project in May. However, the event was postponed.

The ambitious project was declared by the then Congress-NCP government but was stuck in the clearance stage. The government got all the approvals for the Dr Ambedkar memorial at Indu Mill in central Mumbai, but the Shivaji memorial was put on the back burner due to the absence of approvals.