A day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya will be ready by January 1 next year, temple trust general secretary Champat Rai on Friday said its construction will be completed "on time".
"As per plan, the idol of Ram Lalla will be installed in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple on Makar Sankranti (January 14) in 2024," said the general secretary of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust set up for the construction and management of the temple.
By the end of 2023, the construction at the sanctum sanctorum is expected to be completed, Rai said.
"We have set December 2023 as the deadline for construction of the temple and January 2024 to open it for devotees," Rai told PTI over phone from Ayodhya.
In his address at a rally in Sabroom of Tripura on Thursday, Shah hit out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and said, "Rahul baba, listen from Sabroom that a mammoth Ram Mandir will be ready on January 1, 2024."
This is the first time that a date for the opening of the Ram temple in Ayodhya has been announced publicly by Shah.
Refusing to give exact date for the opening of the temple, Rai said, "Grand celebrations for the opening of Ram Mandir will start in December of 2023 and will continue till Makar Sankranti, 2024."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had performed the 'Bhoomi Puja' for the construction of the temple on August 5, 2020.
During his visit to Ayodhya on October 23 last year, after offering prayers to Ram Lalla at the makeshift temple, the prime minister had reviewed the progress of the construction work.
Trust officials had told PTI in August last year that the plinth work has been almost completed.
They said a rectangular, two-storey parikrama road will be constructed, enclosing a total of eight acres of land including the area of the temple and its courtyard, and in its eastern part, there will be an entrance made of sandstone.
White marble from the Makrana hills in Rajasthan will be used inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, they said.
The marble-carving work is in progress and some of the carved marble blocks have already been brought to Ayodhya, the officials added.
Besides the construction of the temple, demolition of shops and houses for widening the road leading to the famous Hanumangarhi mandir is also underway.
After decades-long legal battle, the Supreme Court on November 9, 2019, paved the way for the construction of the Ram temple in the disputed site at Ayodhya, where Babri Masjid was demolished on December 6, 1992.
