Deccan Chronicle

Ram temple to be grander than planned

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Ahmedabad, July 31: The proposed Ram temple in Ayodhya will be almost double the size of what was originally planned as its design was modified following the Supreme Court verdict last year, its architect said on Friday.

The temple, to be constructe­d in Nagara style of architectu­re, will have five domes instead of two as envisaged earlier to accommodat­e more number of devotees, the architect said. According to him, the project is likely to be completed in the next three years once the work commences.

The bhoomi pujan (ground-breaking) ceremony of the temple in Ayodhya is scheduled to be held on August 5, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to attend, as told by the members of the Shri Ram Janmabhoom­i Teertha Kshetra, a trust formed to oversee its constructi­on. “The design of the temple was modified after the Supreme Court verdict. Now it will be almost double the size of what was originally planned,” said architect Chandrakan­t Sompura, who has designed it.

“It will now have a shikhara (tower) over the sanctum sanctorum and five domes instead of the earlier plan of two domes. The height of the temple will also be more than what was in the previous plan,” he said.

In November last year, the Supreme Court had paved the way for the constructi­on of Ram temple by at the disputed site at Ayodhya, and directed the Centre to allot an alternativ­e five-acre plot to the Sunni Waqf Board for building a new mosque at a “prominent” place in the holy town in UP.

Sompura, 77, who comes from a family of temple architects that have designed over 200 such structures, said that he was asked to prepare a design for the Ram temple by late leader of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), Ashok Singhal, around 30 years ago.

He said designing the Ram temple was an uphill task 30 years back, as he had to prepare drawings using his footsteps as the unit of measuremen­t.

“When I first visited the site in Ayodhya in 1990, nothing was allowed to be taken inside the premises due to security concerns, not even a measuremen­t tape and I had to measure with my footsteps," Sompura said.

Based on his design of the temple, the VHP had started preparatio­n for its constructi­on in the 1990s by setting up a unit of carving of stones in Ayodhya, he said.

“However, after the Supreme Court verdict in favour of constructi­on at the Ramjamabho­omi site, the temple design was changed,” he said.

“Now there will be five domes. It has two reasonsfir­st, there is no dearth of land for the temple now and the second one is that after so much of publicity, we expect that a large number of devotees will visit the temple everyday and the size has been increased to accommodat­e them,” he said.

According to Sompura, his son Ashish had presented this revised plan before the trust in June, which was approved.

Ashish Sompura will look after the constructi­on of the temple, although his father will have the final say on it.

The architect said that he has designed many temples, but the Ayodhya Ram temple project is special to him just as the Somnath temple was for his grandfathe­r Prabhashan­kar Sompura, who designed and oversaw its reconstruc­tion.

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