Ayodhya temple work to begin by January-end: Champat Rai

Kanpur, Jan 5: The work on the foundation for the Sri Ram Temple at Ayodhya will start by the end of January. General Secretary of the Shri Ram Janmasthan Teerth Kshetra Trust Champat Rai said that the testing of soil was going on.

Addressing a press conference here Rai said that the temple will be completed in 36 to 39 month’s time from the day construction starts. “We had hoped construction would have started in June but the study has not been completed [even] after seven months. The results are not matching. There is sand, crumbly sand, under the ground or some old debris lying deep,” said Rai .

He also said that the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) had sent them pictures of a channel (stream) of River Sarayu under the site of construction. The first soil testing took place in February 2020. Rai stressed that the foundation work would take place only after clear results. “If there is any confusion in the results, the tests are done again. This reflects the seriousness about the foundation of the temple,” he said.

Engineers and experts from around 10 institutes, including the National Geophysical Research Institute (Hyderabad), Central Building Research Institute (Roorkee), IIT-Bombay, IIT-Guwahati and IIT-Madras, were engaged in the study, he added. Work on the temple was being done keeping in mind its load-bearing capacity and longevity, Rai said. The temple will be 360 feet in length, 235 feet wide and 161 feet in height, while the plinth will be 16.5 feet above the ground level, he added.