Temple Fillip To Ayodhya's Economy

₹41,600 crore investment by Centre and state government to build facilities for 2.88-3.6 crore visitors to put Ayodhya on the cusp of a business boom.

- ASHUTOSH KUMAR

FOR OVER A MONTH before the Pran Pratishtha (consecration)vceremony at Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya, workers at a sweet-making enterprise, Ram Vilas And Sons, worked round the clock to fulfill an order from Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. The order being five lakh packets of ilaichidana, the prasad made from sugar and cardamom, for lakhs of devotees. The trust expects 80,000-1,00,000 devotees to visit the temple every day. Mithilesh Kumar, owner of Ram Vilas And Sons, is gearing up to fulfilling future orders from the trust as well.

In the build-up to the consecration, social media was abuzz with posts and videos of devotees walking down to Ayodhya, some barefoot, from far-off states to pay obeisance to Lord Rama. The number of people visiting the temple annually is expected to be 2.88-3.6 crore, six-seven times the 50 lakh visitors that Vatican City gets. This requires a robust tourism and hospitality ecosystem.

“Estimates by state government put the number of tourists visiting the state at around 32 crore (2.21 crore in Ayodhya alone) with their expenditure exceeding ₹2 lakh crore. Additionally, spending by foreign tourists (UP is ranked 5th in foreign tourists) was around ₹10,500 crore,” SBI Research says in a report,

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