The 15-foot-tall Buddha statue near Hartali Mor is screaming for government attention.

There's garbage strewn all around the installation, the podium tiles are broken, and there are visible cracks on the statue, which is made of welded iron rods, aluminium sheets and iron threads. And once you get past the paan shop that has come up in front of it, obstructing the view, you can easily spot the statue's missing alum-inium sheets.

The statue is one of the finest works of Tibetan artist Tashi Norbu, who created it in 2012, on the occasion of the state's centenary celebrations (Bihar Divas). There were also other art works, by artists Sanjeev Sinha and Subodh Gupta, which were installed at places like Gandhi Museum, Eco Park and Premchand Rangshala. Norbu's statue was installed on the roadside near Hartali Mor for maximum visibility.

The state education department had commissioned many such works from artists of national and international fame during the Bihar Divas celebrations. Sinha, an alumnus of the College of Arts and Crafts, Patna, had convinced artists from 32 countries to create artwork for the occasion. Norbu was one of the invited artists.

Bihar chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, who was principal secretary in the education department in 2012, admitted to The Telegraph that the statue had seen better days.

"These installations were created as a part of the Bihar Divas celebrations. We were supposed to bring them down, but we got so fond of them that we could not think about destroying them. So we decided to display them at various places in the city, including Gandhi Museum and Premchand Rangshala. We installed Tashi Norbu's work on the roadside because we wanted it to be in the public view all the time. We were aware that the statue did not have a long lifespan. You can easily twist the aluminium sheets," said Singh.

He agreed that the statue's location was not perfect. "A lot of dust settled on the installation because of its location on the road. There are other issues as well. I was thinking about getting it shifted to some other place, but was scared that the aluminium sheets in the statue might get twisted in the shifting process," he said.

Repeated attempts to contact the education department principal secretary R.K. Mahajan proved futile. When The Telegraph spoke to Patna Municipal Corporation officials about the garbage near the statue, Vishal Anand, executive officer of the civic body's New Capital circle, said: "We will direct the agency concerned, which has dumped the garbage there, to remove the heap."