Ayodhya 2.0: Transformed holy town turns a page with temple pivot

Security forces virtually took over the Hindu holy town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh on Monday (January 22) ahead of the widely-awaited consecration ceremony of a grand Ram temple at the spot where the Babri mosque stood.

Barricades and barbed wires were placed everywhere while police personnel frisked visitors in the town that has undergone a major shift fuelled by massive infrastructure growth ahead of Monday’s (January 22) event.

Infrastructure boom

The consecration ceremony at the newly-built Ram temple will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and more than 7,000 guests.

The 'pran pratishtha' has been preceded by a string of infrastructural projects to turn the temple town into what the government calls a 'Bhavya, Divya, and Navya Ayodhya'.

Widened roads

With a new airport, a redeveloped railway station, two widened roads - Ram Path and Dharm Path - which are now showpiece streets, multi-level car parking facilities, e-buses, a dedicated multilingual tourist app, and new luxury hotels on the horizon, Ayodhya has majorly changed.

The is the town where Hindus believe Lord Ram was born.

Redeveloping Ayodhya

The airport and the railway station, equipped with modern facilities, bear a cladding of sandstone with the design drawn from the architectural elements of the newly-built Ram temple.

"Ayodhya is undergoing a 'nav nirman' (new construction) and infrastructure is changing. We have to give a new identity to Ayodhya at the global level," Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said recently after flagging off a fleet of e-buses for the city.

Nagara style

The state government's infrastructure expansion is driven and centred around the grand temple, whose 'bhoomipujan' was performed by Modi in August 2020.

Built in the traditional Nagara style, the temple will be 380 feet long (east-west direction), 250 feet wide, and 161 feet high. Each floor will be 20 feet high and have a total of 392 pillars and 44 gates.

Ram Path

To facilitate devotees to reach this temple, the government has redeveloped four roads, including the 13-km Ram Path from Sahadatganj to Naya Ghat Chouraha - for which partial demolition of a large number of shops, houses, and other buildings was carried out.

The widened Ram Path with uniform facades of buildings on both sides, ornamental lamp posts bearing a design representing the traditional 'Ramanadi tilak', and the 40 Surya Stambhs installed along Dharm Path and the Lata Mangeshkar Chowk are new tourist attractions in the town.

New hotels

Anoop Kumar, who runs Hotel Shri Ram Bhawan near Asharfi Bhawan, says people earlier visited Ayodhya, but "very few stayed for a day, let alone a longer duration".

"Earlier, people visited Ramjanmabhoomi, Hanumangarhi temple, Kanak Bhawan, Asharfi Bhawan, and left the same day. Now, visitors want to stay for a day or even longer to explore other places like Ram ki Paidi, Surya Kund, and other temples," he told PTI.

Then and now

Kumar, who built this property in February 2023, said a large number of new budget hotels, lodges, and homestays have sprung up in the city after the 2019 Supreme Court verdict paved the way for the Ram temple.

"The Mandir-Masjid dispute had halted the city's growth. But the construction of the temple has driven the infrastructure push which in turn has fuelled Ayodhya's growth story," he said.

Businesses boom

Prabharaj Palace, a new lodge that was opened a couple of months ago in Begumpura area, has mounted a banner-size poster of the Ram temple in its lobby.

"The excitement that preceded the 'Pran Pratishtha' ceremony had pushed our business, and it is expected to grow for the next several months," Deepak, a managerial staff at the lodge, told PTI.

(With agency inputs)