Ugly clash over Shivaji statue; Navy was in ‘great hurry’ to complete job: PWD

Mumbai: Public Works Department (PWD) officials said that the contract to build Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji’s statue was given to sculptor Jaideep Apte by the Navy, and he had apparently done projects for the central government earlier. “The Navy was in a great hurry to complete the statue before the December 4 Indian Navy Day function at Malvan,” said an official. “We were also told that the sculptor and structural consultant had guaranteed a 200-year life for the statue.”
PWD executive engineer Ajaykumar Sarvagod said that the Navy hastened to complete the statue before the inauguration by PM Narendra Modi . “It was made in parts and brought to the spot and welded,” he said. “The sculptor and foundation expert were welding the statue at the spot for nearly two months. In the last eight days, naval officials took over the welding work and kept others out of the site. This will all come out in the investigation.”
The police have launched their investigation and naval officers are also in Sindhudurg to investigate. When contacted by HT, the naval spokesperson did not comment. Naval sources, however, said that the site was handed over to the PWD in April this year and the PWD should have maintained it.
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Sarvagod said the state PWD had paid ₹2.40 crore for the statue and pedestal, and this was accounted for by the PWD’s Ratnagiri division. “The PWD assistant engineer of the Malvan area, Ajit Patil, and I had inspected the statue, and in the first fortnight of August found that the nuts and bolts had rusted,” he said. “Patil wrote to various authorities and also sent a letter to the Indian Navy by post.”
Meanwhile, the Sindhudurg district police chief Saurabh Agrawal said that a case of attempt to murder and culpable homicide had been filed against the sculptor and civil contractor. “We have begun a search for them,” he said. “I have also collected samples of metal from the site and am sending them to the forensic laboratory to check what went wrong.”
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Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut alleged that there was a Thane connection behind awarding the contract to Jaideep Apte. “There is corruption worth crores of rupees in the Shivaji Maharaj statue,” he said. “MP Shrikant Shinde should be asked where Apte and his other colleagues are now. They are absconding.”
Jaideep Apte is around 39 years old and studied at the J J School of Art and L S Raheja School of Art. In 2012, he began his own studio at Kalyan. Apte has sculpted several statues before, among them two statues of Sikh soldiers. One was installed at Glenwood Park in Sydney in 2023 and the other in England’s Yorkshire in 2019.
Apte also built the statue of Appasaheb Patwardhan, known as ‘Kokan Gandhi’ in 2019. A news report on the internet said that the Kankavli Nagar Panchayat assigned the project to Apte and the then Congress MLA Nitesh Rane had helped the Kankavli Nagarparishad install the statue.