Chakar The Great
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- Britain gave more than £1billion to India as it was built the world's tallest statue
- The Statue of Unity is almost twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in the US
- The 597ft giant bronze monument has been condemned as a vanity project
Britain donated more than £1billion to India in the years when it was lavishing a fortune on building the world’s tallest statue, figures show.
The colossal bronze memorial – almost twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in New York – was immediately condemned as an expensive vanity project when it was unveiled on Wednesday.
In the 56 months it took to construct the £330million Statue of Unity, UK taxpayers gave India £1.17billion in foreign aid, according to official figures.
India’s prime minister Narendra Modi attended the statue’s opening ceremony amid great fanfare. It stands on a bend of the Narmada river in Gujarat, Mr Modi’s home state.
He was chief minister of Gujarat when the vast statue was commissioned.
The engineering project started in 2012, when British taxpayers donated almost £300million to India.
In 2013 a further £268million was given, in 2014 the figure was £278million and in 2015 it was £185million, followed by smaller amounts after that.
As the cash rolled in from Britain, the Indian authorities poured billions of rupees into building the 597ft tall bronze likeness of Sardar Patel, one of the heroes of India’s independence movement.
Last night Tory MP Peter Bone said: ‘To take £1.1billion in aid from us and then at the same time spend £330million on a statue is a total nonsense and it is the sort of thing that drives people mad.
‘What it proves is that we should not be giving money to India. It is up to them how they spend their money but if they can afford this statue, then it is clearly a country we should not need to be giving aid to.’
The British aid money was spent on projects ranging from improving women’s rights to funding solar panels and investment in low-carbon transport. Some £14,000 of the cash was spent in Gujarat in 2014, when the statue’s foundations were being laid, to ‘increase religious tolerance among young people’.
Source: Dailymail UK
