Rs 3,000 cr splurged on Statue of Unity, thousands of families displaced : CPI
Patna, Oct 30: The CPI on Tuesday flayed the Narendra Modi government for "splurging" nearly Rs 3,000 crore on building Sardar Patel's gigantic statue at a time when debt-ridden farmers are "being driven to suicide" and millions of people are defecating in the open for want of sanitation facilities.
The 182 m Statue of Unity, touted as the world's tallest, is slated to be unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat on Wednesday.
CPI national secretary Binoy Viswam claimed that 75,000 adivasi families living near the Sardar Sarovar dam had been rendered homeless to facilitate the construction of the mammoth structure.
"While unveiling the structure amid trademark fanfare, the prime minister would do well to take note of the fact that residents of 12 villages situated along the dam have decided not to cook food in their kitchen in protest against the government's high-handedness that was on display while executing the project", he alleged at a press conference here.
"While touting the statue as the tallest in the world he (the prime minister) must also explain the logic behind splurging Rs 2979 crore on a single project at a time when agrarian distress is driving farmers to suicide", the Rajya Sabha MP said.
The statue, he said, is an insult to Sardar Patel as he would have never agreed to the displacement of 75,000 adivasi families to facilitate the construction of a statue.
"The 'Statue of Unity' is testimony to the fact that Make in India is as much a sham as Swachh Bharat has been.
While crores of Indians are still defecating in the open due to lack of sanitation facilities, 99 per cent work on the statue was completed abroad.
"Modi and the RSS - which has been his alma mater - are the Indian heirs of Hitler and Goebbels for whom spreading falsehood is an ideology. We and all Left and secular parties are therefore committed to defeating the BJP in the next general elections", Viswam asserted.
A beginning to this end has already been made in Patna where all like-minded parties had gathered and spoken in one voice at a rally organized by CPI, he claimed.
State CPI secretary Satya Narayan Singh was also present at the press conference.
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Ahmedabad plane crash: Six months on, college hostel lies in ruins, sans bustle of students
Ahmedabad (PTI): Six months after the AI-171 plane crash, the B J Medical College hostel complex in Ahmedabad stands as a haunting reminder, with its charred walls and burnt trees replacing the once lively chatter of students with an eerie stillness.
Scattered across the crash site are grim remnants of daily life - burnt cars and motorcycles, twisted beds and furniture, charred books, clothes and personal belongings.
The Atulyam-4 hostel building and the adjoining canteen complex stand abandoned, with entry strictly prohibited.
For residents near the site, memories of the incident still linger, casting a lasting shadow on their lives, with some of them saying they are still afraid to look up at the sky when an aircraft passes overhead.
On June 12, Air India flight AI-171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London, crashed moments after take-off from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport, killing 260 persons.
The aircraft slammed into the BJ Medical College hostel complex in Meghaninagar, turning a lively student neighbourhood into a landscape of ruin and grief.
"The area now lies very silent, only a few birds chirp here," Sanjaybhai, a security guard deployed at the premises by authorities to prevent trespassing, told PTI.
Mahendrasingh Jadeja, a general store owner whose shop is just 50 metres from the point where the aircraft struck, described it as an unimaginable calamity. "In all my years, I have never seen anything like this."
Pointing to a tree behind his shop, the 60-year-old said the aircraft first struck there before crashing into the hostel building.
"It was a scorching summer afternoon. Not many people were outside. When I heard a loud crashing sound, I ran out of my shop. We were all terrified," he recalled.
"Even today, we instinctively look up whenever a plane passes overhead," he added.
Another local, Manubhai Rajput, who lives barely 200 metres from the site, said he witnessed the horror unfold on June 12.
"The plane was flying unusually low. Before I could understand what was happening, there was thick black smoke and a deafening crash," he said.
For over three decades, Rajput and his neighbours lived close to the airport without giving much thought to the aircraft overhead.
"We never looked up at the sky. But that day is etched in my mind. The plane hit a tree first, and then there was a loud sound," he said.
Rajput recalled how hundreds of locals rushed to the site even before police, fire services or the Army arrived.
Tinaben, another resident of Meghaninagar, said she never imagined something like this could happen in Ahmedabad.
"Despite being close to the airport, this area always felt safe," she said.
As an aircraft roared overhead during the conversation, Tinaben paused, looked up nervously and said, "It's still scary."
A senior official of Civil Hospital Ahmedabad, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the state government has yet to decide what to do with the damaged site.
Currently, investigations are going on and the site is strictly prohibited for people, he added.
