National Unity Day: 31st October | 143rd Birth Anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

National Unity Day: 31st October 

National Unity day (also known as Rashtriya Ekta Diwas) is celebrated every year on 31st of October by the people all through India. It is celebrated to commemorate the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel who really unified the country. National Unity Day was introduced by the Government of India in 2014 with the aim of celebrating this event every year on 31st October. It would be celebrated as the 143rd birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The aim of introducing this event is to pay tribute to the great man, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, on his birth anniversary by remembering his extraordinary works for the country. He really worked hard in keeping India united.

About Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel

The Iron Man of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was born on 31st of October in 1875 at Karamsand, Gujarat. As being the first Home Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of India he played a most important role in the integration of many Indian princely states to make an Indian federation. He made huge efforts to restore the peace all across the nation. He was also the first chairman and founder of the E.M.H.S (Edward Memorial High School Borsad, currently named as Jhaverbhai Dajibhai Patel High School).

The Celebrations

Run for Unity programme: Held in the major cities, district towns and various places in the rural areas. Youths from the schools, colleges, universities, educational institutes, National Cadet Corps, National Service Scheme, etc take part in the programme very actively. It is organized at a huge level in New Delhi from Vijay Chowk to India Gate on the Rajpath in the morning. 

Statue of Unity: PM Narendra Modi inaugurated Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s memorial on the leader’s 143rd birth anniversary in Gujarat’s Narmada district. Called the Statue of Unity, the bronze sculpture is the world’s tallest statue measuring 600 feet (182m) and overshadows China’s Spring Temple Buddha (153m) and USA’s Statue of Liberty (93m). The memorial was constructed in 33 months at Rs2,989 crore.

5 engineering feats that make ‘Statue of Unity’ special:

1. Larsen & Toubro, which designed and executed the project after winning a tender, deployed a team of over 3,000 workers and 250 engineers. Although the statue was designed and made in India, the bronze panels had to be cast in a foundry in China, since no such facility to handle such a huge project is available in India. 

2. One of the biggest challenges for L&T was to ensure that the face of the statue looks as close as possible to Sardar Patel’s face. For the purpose, they deployed well-known sculptor Ram V. Sutar from Noida who, in turn, went through over 2,000 archival photographs of the ‘Iron Man’ and spoke to several historians and those had seen him to come up with the design matching Patel’s bodily and facial features.

3. For the construction of the statue, the engineers had to be extra cautious in ensuring that the monument had the capability to withstand heavy winds of up to 130 km per hour and earthquakes up to 6.5 on Richter scale since it is located in the middle of the Narmada with heavy winds blowing all around. 

4. Another challenge for engineers was the walking pose of Sardar Patel, which meant that the statue is the weakest at its base as there is a gap of 21 feet between the two legs. Keeping the legs of a statue together helps it in balancing its weight.

5. The engineers adopted the sophisticated state of the art technologies like light detection and ranging technology and telescopic logging to assess rock joints.