The sanctum sanctorum of the grand Ram temple in Ayodhya will be thrown open for ‘darshan’ to devotees in December 2023, just months before the next Lok Sabha elections. Trust officials have announced the completion of the first phase of construction of the temples’ foundation.
With the rollout of the 48th layer of compact concrete, raising the temple foundation to 107m above sea level, the fortified Ram Janmabhoomi premises was showcased for the first time on Thursday by the Temple Trust.
India’s best tech brains have hammered out the final foundation blueprint, which took more than a year to roll out after Prime Minister Narendra Modi performed the ‘Bhoomi pujan’ on August 5 last year.
The sprawling 2.77-acre foundation 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 of 12-inch thickness.
Member of temple trust Dr. Anil Mishra said, after completion of the first phase, work will kick off on erecting the 1.5m high raft, which will be cast in cement, followed by the plinth to be sculpted from pink sandstone sourced from Mirzapur.
Temple trust secretary Champat Rai said, four lakh cubic feet of pink stones from Mirzapur will be used for constructing the plinth and one lakh cubic feet of carved marble from Bansi Paharpur in Rajasthan is ready for sculpting the spire.
An official in charge of the construction said 47 layers of concrete were filled after excavation to support the three-storied structure that will come up over 10 acres of land within the temple complex
“After the foundation ceremony, we dug in 40 feet to remove the loose earth and garbage… we did proper compaction there and then poured in the concrete,” said project manager Binod Mehta, who is from Larsen and Toubro.
Each of the 47 layers is one foot in height. The plinth will be 60 feet high, he added.