Secretary General of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Milind Parande claimed that the construction works of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is going ahead of schedule and the temple would be opened to devotees within 3-4 years. He was delivering a keynote address on ‘the power of temples ecosystem and an overview of the Ayodhya Ram Mandir’s transformation’ on the last day of three-day International Temples Convention and Expo (ITCX)-2023 at Rudraksh Conventional Centre (Sigra) here on Monday. 

“When the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya was first announced in 2019, many Hindu organisations all over the country expressed their heartfelt joy and gratitude and joined hands to contribute to this historic development. In the following days, massive teams of activists travelled across the length and breadth of the country visiting over five lakh villages and collected approximately Rs 3,200 crore from 12.75 crore families within just 46 days. This was an unprecedented accomplishment for us as a community,” said the senior VHP leader.

Talking about the collection of these funds, he further added that the Hindu money must be utilised for Hindu causes. With regards to the construction, he said that during ground-levelling and excavation of the construction site a Shivaling, pillars and broken idols were found, indicating that there existed not one but two temples in the same place at different times in history. “Extensive research and analysis indicated that these temples were reduced to land due to a stream of the Sarayu river flowing under the temple. In order to safeguard the Ram Mandir, we had to build a retaining wall to control the force of water from hindering the temple structure. Further, the land of the construction site mainly constituted sand, so we had to also excavate all that sand and build an artificial land extremely strong and robust enough to house the temple. In this process, IIT Chennai played a very crucial role,” said Parande.

Apart from the VHP leader, the last day of ITCX-2023 by Temple Connect continued the knowledge-sharing sessions and interactions on best practices in temple management. Selvam Alaghhappan, Executive Director of Chettinad Heritage and Wellness Resorts spoke about temple tourism and how individual temples could better the experience for its visitors. Prasad Lad, Chairman of ITCX and Member of Maharashtra Legislative Council stressed on the importance of the convention and how it would open doors to improvement while  Founder of Expo (ITCX) 2023 and Temples Connect Giresh Kulkarni threw light on the improvement of management, operation and administration of the temple ecosystem. 

Speaking on the occasion, Acharya Dev said that he got the inspiration to connect the devotees with devotion through virtual media during the Covid period, when it was not possible for the devotees to reach the temples and along with the devotees, the priests of the temple also needed income at that time. Taking all these important points, he established Vama (Vartul Astrology and Temple App). “So far, 25 lakh devotees have been digitally connected with Vama,” he said. Expressing her views on ‘cyber surveillance and technology in the temple ecosystems’, Sayali Lad, Founder and CEO, Volksara said that we are moving towards development and progress, but cyberwar is the biggest war.

“We are not robots, and thus human error can occur. Thus, the addition of analog cameras and AI cameras can go a long way,” she added.

Expressing his views on temple tourism, Selvam Alaghhappan, Executive Director, Chettinad Heritage & Wellness Resorts said that it is important to link the clusters of temples on our tourism map for vibrant spiritual and architectural temple tourism to flourish and enhance India’s position as the spiritual capital of the world and the global destination for temple tourism. Expressing his views on temple Infrastructure, Vishram DeoJi, project management specialist, and Ex-Trustee of Chinchwood Deostan said that it is important to provide devotees with adequate infrastructure by managing peak loads, and ensuring safety with fire               extinguishers, alarms, and drone facilities that require teamwork and good infrastructure management through training and development of employees.