Let us have a detailed look at the number of visitors, revenues, and earnings of the Statue of Unity - the tallest statue of the world.
How many visitors come to the Statue of Unity?
Statue of Unity was opened on 31st Oct 2018
In the first year of operations:
The average visitors to Statue of Unity from 1st Nov 2018 to 31 Oct 2019, were 8,653 daily.
This may not give you a complete picture as the numbers were increasing.
For Nov 2019 alone:
The average visitors to the Statue of Unity increased to 15,036 daily.
For 25 Dec'19 to 31st Dec' 19, below were the figures
Number of Visitors | Revenue in Rs | |
| Dec 25 | 28,305 | Rs 58,83,385 |
| Dec 26 | 27,235 | Rs 58,16,025 |
| Dec 27 | 29,654 | Rs 58,81,365 |
| Dec 28 | 32,825 | Rs 65,63,640 |
| Dec 29 | 39,123 | Rs 70,72,780 |
| Dec 30 (closed) | NA | NA |
| Dec 31 | 19,944 | Rs 41,80,270 |
This makes an average of 29,514 visitors daily. The total revenue of Statue of Unity for only these six days was Rs 3.54 crores (Rs 3,53,97,465).
You can see that on Dec 29, 2019, 39,123 visitors came to visit the statue.
To give you an idea of how big this number is, let us compare this to the number of people that visited the Statue of Liberty and Tajmahal (from annual numbers as we don't have similar date average numbers).
Number of daily Visitors (Last week of 2019 to average visitors of Taj Mahal and Statue of Liberty)
Number of visitors
| Statue of Unity | 29,514 |
| Statue of Liberty | 10,000 |
| Taj Mahal | 19,425 |
There were long queues that were seen in that week. The authorities planned for this increase in visitors so they did increase the number of buses plying for the visitors.
Is it worth spending Rs 2,989 crore on the Statue of Unity?
Well, our take is Yes.
Before we delve into it why? Let us get the breakdown of the cost involved.
Rs 2,979 crore was in total budgeted for building the statue. It is important to note here that it was funded mostly by a rich state of India, Gujarat. Here is the break up of funding.
Gujarat state government budget provisions.
| Year | Budgetary Provision |
| 2013-14 | Rs 100 crore |
| 2015-16 | Rs 915 crore |
| 2016-17 | Rs 1066 crore |
| 2018-19 | Rs 899 crore |
The central government gave a grant of Rs 200 crore.
PSUs also participated in this novel project as part of their CSR funding.
| PSU | The amount funded under CSR |
| Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited | Rs 50 crore |
| Indian Oil Corporation Limited | Rs 21.83 crore |
| Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited | Rs 25 crore |
| Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited | Rs 25 crore |
| Oil India Limited | Rs 25 crore |
| Gujarat Minerals Corporation Limited (GMCL) | Rs 11 crore |
Now let's also understand how this budget was spent.
Of Rs 2,979 crore, L&T was paid as per below.
1. Rs 1,347 crore was paid for building the statue.
2. Rs 235 crore for constructing the exhibition center and convention center
3. Rs 134 crore for research and development centers
4. Rs 83 crore for building the bridge connecting memorial with the mainland
There were other expenses
1. Project management and consultancy by World-class consultants like Turner Construction, Michael Graves and Associates and the Meinhardt Group.
2. Other Government miscellaneous expenses.
How the Statue of Unity benefits India?
#1)
It is expected that with the ticket sales, the Government would be able to recover the cost of building it with the ticket sales in approximately 25 years.
It is already getting more than 30,000 visitors daily so it might recover the cost earlier.
The monument is expected to last many more years.
So this will bring a lot of profits and soft power to India apart from crediting Sri Sardar Patel his due credit for excellent work integrating India.
#2)
Now people would just not directly land at the site of Statue of unity. They will most likely first reach a big city like Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, etc and then come to the Statue of Unity.
They will also board a Hotel and use other services. This increased visitors due to the statue would mean a lot more business and revenue.
Tourists would most likely also visit tourist places near the Statue of unity as well. This would again mean additional revenue to the state.
It is common knowledge that the potential of the Indian tourism Industry is not leveraged the way it should be. India lags behind many countries when it comes to Tourism due to lack of infrastructure though it has a lot of potential for the same.
This statue would enable the right infra and market India's tourism worldwide.
#3)
Let us also think why this money should not be directly distributed to the poor as many would ask.
Our argument is that we should teach a person how to fish instead of giving him the fish. Giving fish to him will keep him poor whereas teaching him fish would elevate him out of poverty.
This monument is expected to bring 15,000 direct jobs. Add 4 more indirect jobs that get created to one direct job. This adds a lot of value to the whole ecosystem.
We hope this gives you a good idea about the number of visitors, revenue, and earnings of the Statue of Unity. Do let us know your views in the comments section below.
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