A Bangkok-based company has been chosen to design a new monument off the coast of the Indian city of Mumbai that has drawn comparisons to New York's Statue of Liberty, reports here said Wednesday.
Bensley Design Studios will work with Mumbai firm Team One on the tribute to a 17th-century warrior which will stand 321 feet (98 metres) tall from its plinth on a purpose-built island in the Arabian Sea.
It will be taller than the Statue of Liberty, which measures 305 feet from its base to the tip of the flame, the equivalent of a 22-storey building.
The decision on the design, which still needs clearance from India's environment ministry, was approved at a cabinet meeting of the Maharashtra state government on Tuesday, Times of India and other media here said.
The monument will depict Chhatrapati Shivaji, who established a kingdom in western India free from the rule of the Muslim Mughal empire.
He is still an icon to hardline Hindu groups in Mumbai and Maharashtra, who argue that not enough is being done to protect the interests of local Marathi-speaking people in the state from "outsiders."
Critics argue that the estimated three-billion-rupee (61-million-dollar) project, which includes a museum and gardens, should be shelved and the money spent on more pressing concerns like housing and infrastructure.
Copyright 2009 AFP Global Edition
