The flag measures 60x40 feet and weighs roughly 50 kg
As India celebrates its 69th Independence Day, the Indian Navy is attempting a unique and special feet to unfurl the Indian tricolour at the highest peak in Maharashtra.
The expedition was flagged off from Navy Nagar in Mumbai by Flag Officer Commanding of the Maharashtra and Gujarat Naval Area Rear Admiral M Pawar. The team consists of eight officers and 22 men. With the weather forecast predicting showers, the expedition is going to be even more difficult.
Rear Admiral M Pawar told NDTV, "A team from Western Naval Command is taking up an expedition to climb the tallest peak in the state of Maharashtra, Mount Kalsubai. As the day dawns, this team of brave naval personnel will unfurl the largest flag of India measuring 60 feet in length and 40 feet in breadth on top of Mount Kalsubai."
The leader of the expedition team, Lieutenant Commander Vineet Doshi told NDTV on Friday, "This is 60x40 feet. That's about roughly 240 square foot and weighs about roughly 50 kg. We start from Bombay hopefully after the rise and we reach Nashik tomorrow morning somewhere. So it is about 170 km from the base camp and from there its 16 and a half kilometre trek to the hilltop of Mount Kalsubai which is at 1646 metres."
"We wanted to challenge ourselves for the 69th Independence Day and this is a very unique event. We decided to do something out of the box. We decided to get a huge flag stitched and decided on the fact and dimensions that how much our team can actually carry and ended up on the dimension of 60x40 feet," Lieutenant Commander Doshi added.
With the team having embarked on the challenge, its final aim is to see the tricolour, literally flying high at a height of 6176 metres.