Thiruvananthpuram, September 9: A bronze statue of Vivekananda will be inaugurated by Vice-President Hamid Ansari on September 11 at Kowdiar Park, Thiruvanathpuram to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda.
According to sources in Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari, which is in charge of setting up the statue, the Vice President has consented to unveil the statue being installed as part of the year-long country-wide observance of the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda. The statue of Vivekananda is being installed here in view of the fact that he had spent nine days here, during his historic Kerala tour before proceeding to Kanyakumari.
The 9.5-feet tall bronze statue and the ‘mandapam’, in which the statue will be placed, are being made in the sculptors village of Mahabalipuram near Chennai. The sculptor is Dhakshana Moorthy, son of N L Sonavadekar, the famous sculptor who made Vivekananda Statue at Kanyakumari.
Vivekanada Kendra, an organisation based at Mahabalipuram in Chennai has donated Rs.16 lakh for the project while the State government sanctioned Rs.15 lakh. The whole project, which will be completed in six phases, is estimated to cost Rs.1 crore. City Mayor K Chandrika is the chairperson of the Statue Installation Committee.
Phase 1, 2 and 3 which will be inaugurated on Sept 11, includes making of the statue, mandapam and landscaping. Phase 4 be will be engravings about Vivekananda’s life on the walls of the park, which would be 30-feet high.
A meditation hall would be constructed in the fifth phase and the last phase would be see a light and show about Vivekananda’s life at the park.
P Ashok Kumar, councilor of Palkulangara and also a member of Statue Installation Committee, said it will be the largest statue in Trivandrum. He claimed that the park would also emerge as a tourist destination like Sree Padmanabha Swami Temple.