The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Wednesday announced a fund raising drive spread across the country for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya. The drive and attending mass contact programme will start on January 15, according to senior office-bearer and Ramjanmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust general secretary Champat Rai.
Only domestic funds will be sought as the trust under whose aegis the temple is being built doesn’t have required approvals for accepting funds from abroad. “Donations will be collected from general public through the mass contact and contribution campaign starting from January 15,” Mr. Rai said.
Underlining that the Ram temple would actually take the form of a ‘Rashtra Temple’ (national temple), Mr. Rai said a photo of the proposed new model of Shri Ramjanmbhoomi Mandir would also reach crores of households through this campaign.
“Voluntary donations from Rambhakts will be accepted for which coupons of ₹10, ₹100 and ₹1,000 will be made available,” he said.
In order to maintain transparency in the financial dealings and transactions, the trust had printed four crore coupons of ₹10, eight crore coupons of ₹100 and 12 lakh coupons of ₹1,000, he said.
Mr. Rai said CSR funds could be considered for other adjoining buildings of temple.
He said no target had been fixed for collecting funds and no estimate had been made of expenditure for construction of the temple.
