The construction of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is in full flow, with the foundation work finished and the next phase of plinth construction having commenced. The construction work on the Ram Mandir began on August 5, 2020, after the foundation stone laying ceremony by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra (SRJBTK), the authority in charge of Ram Mandir’s operations, is supervising the temple’s construction. Former IAS Nripendra Mishra is the chairman of the construction committee.
Larsen & Toubro is the main contractor for the construction of the temple and the ramparts, while Tata Consulting Engineers has been hired as the project management consultant, while four other engineers four engineers Jagdish Aphale (IIT- Mumbai), Girish Sahastrabhujani (IIT-Mumbai), Jagannathji (from Aurangabad), and Avinash Sangamnerkar (from Nagpur) are also working voluntarily on behalf of the Trust.
The entire project is projected to cost between 900 and 1,000 crores to build and will be spread over 110 acres of land. The temple complex will also include a museum, a research centre, and an archival centre. By December 2023, the temple’s lower floor, which will house the sanctum sanctorum and a Ram Lalla idol, would be ready for worship.
According to the most recent update, 1.85 lakh cubic metres of layered civilizational debris and ancient loose soil were removed from around six acres of land surrounding the Temple site.
The foundation has been laid, and the plinth/pedestal raising work began on January 24 this year and is still ongoing. The plinth is raised using granite stone blocks from Karnataka and Telangana. The installation of carved sandstones around the sanctum sanctorum will also commence soon. The Mandir will be built from pink sandstones from the hills of the Bansi-Paharpur region in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur district.
White marble from Rajasthan’s Makrana hills will be utilised in the Mandir’s Sanctum Sanctorum. Makrana white marbles are being engraved, and some of these carved marble slabs have begun to arrive in Ayodhya.
Temples dedicated to Bhagwan Valmiki Rishi, Kewat, Mata Shabari, Jatayu, Mata Sita, Vighneshwar (Ganesh), and Sheshavatar (Lakshman) are also in the works and will be erected in the area surrounding the 8-acre temple complex. In the first phase, a pilgrim facility centre (PFC) would be established near the Mandir approach road on the eastern side, designed to provide vital services to roughly 25,000 pilgrims a day.
Every month, the construction committee, which includes all of the engineers and architects, meets for two to three days under the chairmanship of Nripendra Mishra to go over every element in great detail. The temple and Parkota (ramparts) are designed by C.B. Sompura of Ahmedabad, while the remainder of the area beyond the 8-acre presiding temple area is designed by Shri Jay Kaktikar of Design Associates in NOIDA.
On February 13, 2022, Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust posted a 3D view of the whole temple via its official Twitter handle. The grandeur of the Ram Mandir to be built in Ayodhya is very much evident in the video animation.
