High on glory, monumental flags take huge effort to install, retain
NEW DELHI: These days professor Bipin Kumar and his team of researchers and engineers at Swatric, an IIT Delhi start-up where Kumar is a mentor, are busy designing and developing a suitable fabric for the national flag.
“In the past few years, monumental national flags are becoming very popular, but these often get torn in the strong winds and rain. We are trying to develop a fabric that is able to withstand the rain, strong wind and other extreme weather conditions,” says Kumar, who teaches in the department of textile technology at IIT Delhi.
Last month, Swatric signed an MoU with the Flag Foundation of India, a non-governmental organization that works to popularise the display of the Tiranga (tricolour flag) by more and more citizens, to develop engineered textile for the national flag. “We have already come up with the first few prototypes and are trying to test one of them by making a monumental flag with it and hoisting it on a 100ft pole within our campus before the coming Independence day.”
In the past few years, from Delhi-NCR to Guwahati, India has had some of the world’s tallest and largest national flags installed in public parks, at railway stations, airports, educational campuses, corporate houses, among others.
In 2014, when the 207-feet tall tricolour was installed by Flag Foundation of India in central park in Connaught Place, it was billed as the largest national flag, on the highest flagpole anywhere in the country. It sort of started a trend and competition across the country among states to install a bigger and higher national flag, and today there are several monumental flags, much higher and larger than the one soaring over Connaught Place. But Delhi will soon earn a new distinction as the city boasting of the maximum number of monumental flags. Recently the Public Works Department ( PWD) in Delhi floated a tender for the installation of 495 giant, high-mast 114 ft tricolours across Delhi, as part of the Delhi government’s Deshbhakti budget.
A flag of 20x30 ft and larger on at least 100 feet high pole is considered a ‘monumental flag.’
“The demand for the monumental flags has gone up four times in the past four years. The giant national flags made by us are currently installed across 180 locations in the country, half of them were installed in the past three years,” says Gyan Shah, who runs The Flag Corporation, a Mumbaibased firm.
One of them is a 9,600 sq ft flag standing on a 319.5 feet pole at Gandhi Mandap, a memorial for Mahatma Gandhi atop the Sarania Hill in Guwahati — said to be the fourth tallest in the country. Others are located in Belagavi in Karnataka (361 ft) , Attari border in Punjab (360 ft)and the ones at Bhakti Shakti Chowk, Pune (351 ft). In Delhi-NCR the largest and tallest national flag measuring 96 X 64 feet was unfurled on March 3, 2015 at Town Park in Faridabad on a 250 feet high pole by Amit Shah, then president of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
“We are getting requests from all parts of the country to help install these giant flags. In most cases, we provide the technical know-how and the flags are maintained by the organization that installs them,” says Major General ( retired) Ashim Kohli, CEO, Flag Foundation of India, an organisation founded by industrialist and former MP Naveen Jindal.
The making and maintenance of these monumental flags, which weighs anything between 20 to 150 kg, depending on the size and the fabric used, is quite a tricky task. “It involves both machine and handwork. Several large parts have to be sewn together, and we have to ensure that the weight is not too much. The heavier it is, the greater its chances of being torn in the strong wind,” says Delhi-based Abdul Gaffar, who has been making flags for the past five decades.
Gurpreet Singh Kalsi, who runs Kalsi Brothers, a Delhi-based firm that makes both giant flags and the poles say that the number of orders for monumental flags has been doubling every year in the last three years. “June, July, August, December and January are our busiest months and currently, I am making about 15 giant flags in a month, compared to five two years back. The process of installing a giant flag takes about a month as it involves digging a deep foundation and making a solid platform.”
A giant flag costs anything between ₹30, 000 to ₹1.5 lakh, and a 200 feet flagpole (most are of galvanized iron), costs about ₹25 lakh, says Kalsi.
Kohli says the flag in CP, which costs about ₹70,000, has to be replaced a few times during the year. The Flag Foundation of India has hired a guard to maintain the flagpole at CP. “He ensures the upkeep of the flagpost and immediately informs us if there is any damage to the flag so that we can replace it. The honour and decorum of the flag is of paramount importance to us,” says Kohli.
Back at Swatric , Bipin Kumar says given India’s diverse climatic and geographical conditions, designing and developing engineered fabric for the flag is a big challenge.
“We are working to find the right kind of yarn, the right fabric structure, the right coating on the fabric to ensure durability, colour fastness, and toughness. We hope to test our first fabric prototype soon,” said Kumar.