Express News Service
LUCKNOW: The foundation of the upcoming temple of Lord Ram on Ramjanmabhoomi premises has reached its completion with the filling of the 48th layer of compact concrete in it. This has raised the temple foundation to 107 metres above sea level, said a senior member of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust, the body set up to supervise the temple construction in Ayodhya.
While the temple trust claimed that the first phase of foundation construction for the temple was over, it confirmed that the sanctum sanctorum of the grand Ram temple would be opened for devotees to have darshan by December 2023, a few months before the next Lok Sabha elections due in 2024.
The temple trust had invited the local journalists to Ramjanmabhoomi premises for the first time to have a glimpse of the sprawling 2.77acre foundation, which is 50-foot deep, 400-foot long, and 300-foot wide. It was raised with roller-compacted concrete of stone ash, stone powder, and cement with each layer having a thickness of 12 inch.
Detailing about the next step to be followed, one of the trustees Dr Anil Mishra said that as the first phase of the foundation construction was over, the work would kick off on erecting the 1.5m high raft cast in cement, followed by the plinth to be sculpted from pink sandstone sourced from Mirzapur.
Temple trust general secretary Champat Rai said that 4 lakh cubic feet of pink stones from Mirzapur would be used for constructing the plinth and 1 lakh cubic feet of carved marble from Bansi Paharpur in Rajasthan is ready for sculpting the spire.
It may be recalled that the design of the temple and the foundation underwent many improvisations. The finalisation of the design for the foundation remained suspended for several months after the sand underneath the foundation site was found to be quite loose owing to the stream of river Saryu which was passing through site.
Subsequently, India’s best tech brains hammered out the final foundation blueprint, which took more than a year to roll out after PM Narendra Modi performed the ‘bhoomipujan’ on August 5 last year.
Now, the experts are busy brainstorming on the construction of the outer periphery wall around the main temple complex to ensure its security.
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