Sardar Patel Statue of Unity. (Express Photo)
Even as close to 122 villages on the other side of the Statue of Unity across the River Narmada are on the edge after the local district administration initiated a process to include the area under the eco-sensitive zone as per a notification of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), BJP’s Bharuch MP and tribal leader Mansukh Vasava has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging that the zone be withdrawn to “mitigate the protests” of tribal communities.
Vasava’s letter comes on a day when the state government’s general administration department sanctioned two circles of management with a strength of 201 personnel for the Statue of Unity Area Development and Tourism Governance Authority, or SoU Tourism Authority (SoUTA). The personnel will be responsible for the operation and maintenance, water supply, sewage lines, roads, parking, lights as well as the decorative lighting in the area