BENGALURU: A bust of former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam made from scrap materials is the new attraction at Yeshwantpur.
Passengers travelling from Yeshwantpur railway station towards Tumakuru can view the installation, which has been put up near the coaching depot.
South Western Railway officials said the bust is made of nuts, bolts, wire strands and other scrap materials. Vikas Gurwani, senior coaching depot officer, Yeshwantpur, said: “Our in-house team led by section engineers CP Sridhar and Srinivas Raju created this structure from scrap materials. We spent only around Rs 3,000 on painting work.”
“He is the Missile Man of India and also an idol for all engineers,” said Gurwani.
SWR’s Yeshwantpur coaching depot team had also created a statue of Swami Vivekananda and the ‘Make in India’ lion from metal scrap. The team had set up Kempegowda Heritage Garden at the depot with 3D paintings on boulders.
“Our primary job is coach maintenance. Around 200 coaches are being maintained here. But we are happy to find time to come up with these initiatives, which also inspire our staff. The creativity and zeal of workers is remarkable. In fact, Kalam sir once said, ‘Creativity is seeing the same thing but thinking differently’. So, we wanted to give the Missile Man the most creative tribute,” said Gurwani.
Many netizens praised the initiative. “Creativity indeed... the missile to convert your imagination into reality!! If the missile man’s watchword was Mission Space; YPR depot’s is Mission Scrap. If the former is pure intelligence the latter is intelligence with aesthetics (sic),” wrote a Twitter handle named Sher Singh.
