Largest and smallest Bharat map find place in Berhampur

Berhampur: It's officially amazing. The largest and the smallest Bharat maps as a solid structure are at Berhampur in Ganjam district.

In February 2021, students of government-managed Industrial Training Institute (ITI), Berhampur had made 30-foot high and 24-foot wide Bharat map from two-wheeler scrap iron including cranks, chain and sprockets weighing 3 tonnes. For this effort, they were placed in Asia Book of Records which recognised it as the largest solid structure of Bharat map in the country. Students of Fitter, Welder and Painter trades built this map in one month. Captain Gaurav Taneja took part in 'Aasman Mein Bharat' campaign on January 26 in which he flew for 350 km in three hours to create the map. He claimed it to be the largest Bharat map. But it was drawn in the sky and not a solid structure.

Satya Narayan Maharana (38) of Berhampur, who has set more than 60 international and national records for creating smallest artifacts in different mediums, has made the smallest Bharat map on a pencil lead.

India Book of Records confirmed it as the smallest Bharat map on August 29. Satya carved out the smallest sized Bharat map (2 mm in height x 2 mm in breadth) on a pencil lead in just 4 minutes and 57 seconds, according to the official confirmation. It was mentioned that it would be under India Book of Records 2025. Thus, Silk City Berhampur is proud to be the record holder of the largest and the smallest Bharat map.

Earlier, the smallest Bharat map in the India Book of Records was set by Sriram Saiteja (23) of Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh who carved out a small sized map of India (3 mm in height x 2.5 mm in breadth) on a pencil lead in 8 minutes and 36 seconds till June last.

Satya makes the smallest artifacts in different mediums including wood, chalk, soap and sand. Satya, a native of Sorada in Ganjam district, is residing in Nilakantha Nagar 2nd Lane in Bijipur. He has already trained hundreds of students in different mediums of arts including sculpture, wood carving, drawing and sand. He intends to popularise the art and culture of Odisha among youths.

ITI Berhampur has displayed beautiful sculptures from scrap materials in its Open Sky Museum inside the campus including the largest Bharat map, 22-foot high fish, 18-foot high Hollywood film character ‘Predator’, 70-foot high guitar, 32-foot high and 12-foot wide weighing approximately 2,000-kg giraffe and largest fishing lure in the world with a length of 22 feet 8 inches. It also displayed ‘Scrap Indoor Museum’ inside the ITI campus with 200 crafts and objects from waste materials like iron and electrical scraps, automobile scraps, plumbing scraps which was opened in 2017 and grabbed everyone’s eyeball.