Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust on Wednesday requested the dignitaries who enjoy VIP status and protocols including chief ministers, governors and ambassadors to avoid visiting Ayodhya on January 22, the day of Ram Temple consecration, as the authorities would be busy in the mega event and the trust would not be able to serve them.
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Trust’s general secretary Champat Rai has said that those enjoying protocols and VIP status should not plan any visit to Ayodhya on the big day so that no one faces any kind of inconvenience during the ceremony, which is likely to be attended by PM Narendra Modi.
Instead, the dignitaries should plan their visit when the people from their state will come to the temple. After the consecration ceremony, people from every state of the country will visit Ayodhya from January 26 to February 22 to pay their obeisance to Ram Lalla, he said.
“Any such person who has a constitutional protocol with them is requested to not to come to Ayodhya on the day of ‘Pran Pratishtha’. Chief ministers, governors, ambassadors, and anyone who has a constitutional protocol with them, we will not be able to look after them on January 22 and local administration will also not be able to do that,” he told news agency ANI.
The construction of the ground floor of the Ram Mandir will be completed by December, and the inaugural ceremony is set to take place on January 22 next year. The temple will be completed in three phases by January 2025.
In an interview to ANI, chairman of Ayodhya Ram Mandir Construction Committee Nripendra Misra has said that 70,000-75,000 people can have easy darshan if the temple is open for 12 hours. The temple has 160 pillars on the ground floor and each pillar has 25 iconographical works of different forms.
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Earlier, the trust had informed that it has spent ₹900 crore on the construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya between February 5, 2020 and March 31, 2023, and still possesses ₹3,000 crore in bank accounts.
The temple trust appealed to people across the country to light lamps in front of their houses after the sunset on the day of the consecration ceremony. It has also decided to distribute sacred grain rice (akshata), offered to the deity at the Ram Janmabhoomi, to 5,00,000 villages across the country ahead of the consecration ceremony.
(With inputs from agencies)
