Bengaluru, (DHNS): The statue fever has hit Karnataka, with the state government proposing to build a 350ft tall statue of Mother Cauvery at the Krishnaraja Sagar (KRS) reservoir in Mandya district.

The statue will stand on a 125ft base from where visitors can view the dam from the viewer’s gallery. The statue will be built alongside a not-so-tall statue of Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar. Both the statues will be among the key attractions at the ‘Disneyland-like’ project taken up jointly by the Tourism and the Water Resources Department in a bid to boost tourism in the state. The statue proposal was approved by Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar and Tourism Minister Sa Ra Mahesh during a meeting in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

In his July 5 budget, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy had announced the government’s proposal to develop KRS on the model of Disneyland in USA. Earmarking an initial allotment of Rs 5 crore for the project, Kumaraswamy had said that global industrialists were eager to invest in the project. Speaking to DH, Mahesh said the project will be taken up on a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model, and that tenders would be floated in the next two months.

Stating that River Cauvery was a symbol of motherhood, Mahesh said the government wanted to reflect the strong sentiment of Kannadigas for Cauvery ‘thayi’ through the statue. The statue will assume the form of a woman holding a tipped pot, out of which water will pour out continuously.

Water will be pumped up the statue to achieve this effect. “But the highlight of the entire project will be the amusement park. The project will also include various theme parks like Penguin Park and Aromatherapy Park. There will be a street with replicas of historical monuments like Hampi, Belur and Halebid.

There will also be hotels and food courts,” he said. There is also a proposal to build a wax museum housing replicas of iconic personalities from the state and the country.

Mahesh said that around 500 acres of land was available, and that the project might come up in about 350 acres. The entire project cost will be anywhere between Rs 1,500 crore and Rs 2,000 crore. The project was conceptualised by a Jaipur-based architectural firm, he said. The minister also clarified that the riveting Brindavan Gardens will not be disturbed.

Named after Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV of the erstwhile Mysore, KRS is built near the conjunction of three rivers, Cauvery, Hemavathi and Lakshman Tirtha. It is a major source of drinking water for the cities of Mysuru and Bengaluru aside from being one of the main sources of irrigation water in the Cauvery basin.