You can now have eco-friendly e-Bike tours at the Statue of Unity

World’s tallest statue, the Statue of Unity (SOU), is now offering eco-friendly e-Bike tours! Since its inauguration in October 2018, in a very short time, it has become one of the most favoured tourist attractions in the country and people from across the globe have been visiting Gujarat to witness this man-made wonder. The tourism sector in Gujarat has witnessed a boom since the installation of the statue.
The flagging off ceremony of India’s first Electric Vehicle tourism initiative was done by Union Tourism Minister K J Alphons, who also happens to be the Chairman of National Tourism Advisory Council (NTAC). He said, “Sustainability is a huge focus for us and through e-bike tours, we aim to encourage people to adopt eco-friendly tourism initiatives”.

During the ceremony, he also mentioned that the Statue of Unity will witness around five million visitors by next year. He also said that in the past four years, the tourism industry in India has created nearly 1.39 crore jobs.
The minister, emphasising on the importance of the SOU, said that the government is quite keen on achieving the five million visitors target and will do all kinds of promotion with the help of national and state tourism departments. He said that they will develop SOU as an iconic site with world-class infrastructure and tourism facilities.

SOU is doing great in terms of generating revenue as well. Union Minister recently mentioned in the Lok Sabha that around INR 19.47 crore was generated from visitors to the Statue of Unity (from November 2018 - January 2019) and 7,81,349 visitors visited the statue during the same months.

Given its rising popularity, authorities have also increased the visiting time to the statue by two hours.