Ayodhya: Once the pran pratishtha at the newly-built Ram Mandir in Ayodhya is over, the city administration has another humongous task on its hands — handling the influx of lakhs of devotees and tourists to the temple town and their smooth sojourn in it.
The Ayodhya administration is expecting over 4-5 lakh visitors to descend on the city daily in the wake of Monday’s consecration ceremony, to which it is busy giving the final touches and which will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other dignitaries in attendance.
Speaking to ThePrint, Ayodhya Divisional Commissioner Gaurav Dayal said that while the number of people coming to the temple town had doubled already, “After 22 January, we are expecting a massive inflow of pilgrims and tourists. And the number can go up to 4-5 lakh pilgrims a day”.
Dayal, however, added that the authorities had been planning for the devotees for the past year and “we have tried to create capacity in the city so that they can come here and we can accommodate so many people”.
“The public amenities have been upgraded, other facilities have also been put in place, such as dormitories, lockers and parking lots. We anticipated that there would be a huge rush and the city should be in a position to take care of the pilgrims,” he said.
Dayal added that the administration had experience of handling up to 25 lakh pilgrims in a 24-hour cycle. “We already have that experience. I don’t think we should face any problems in handling the pilgrims.”
He also spoke about the challenges the administration faced while sprucing up the city for the consecration ceremony.
“It was a real challenge but we put our team together and put strategies in place. We had clear goals that had to be achieved by 22 January. The team that was given to me was very competent and pulled up their socks. We just got down to work, and that’s how we could achieve what you see right now,” he said, referring to Ayodhya’s makeover that has made the old city unrecognisable.
According to Dayal, the team took all stakeholders on board for the city’s transformation. He added that the development was expected to boost employment and investment opportunities in the temple town.
“As you know, there’s huge investment potential in the tourism sector now. More than 50 investments (projects) are ready for a ground-breaking ceremony. Also, more than 100 MoUs have been signed in the (Ayodhya) tourism sector. There’s huge potential and the city will grow massively. I believe that more development will take place in the next few years,” he told ThePrint.
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Providing accommodation, boosting tourism
Giving accommodation details for the huge influx of visitors, Dayal said temporary accommodation for about 25,000 people in the form of dormitories would be available after 25 January for a period of two months.
This, he said, was in addition to the temporary accommodation built by the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust — formed to manage the affairs of the new temple — for around 15,000 people for two months.
Dayal added that accommodation in hotels, dharamshalas, homestays and luxury tents was already available for 25,000 people per day.
He also pointed out that not all the people who come to Ayodhya stay back. “Many will mostly make day trips from nearby districts for the first 10 or 15 days, according to our assessment,” he added.
The Uttar Pradesh government has also constructed a “tent city” in the temple town — the Panchvati Ashray Sthal, to house devotees expected during the pran pratishtha and later.
The sthal offers free food and lodging and devotees can stay here for a period of 48 hours. It also has a number of folding beds along with mattresses, pillows, sheets and blankets.
The divisional commissioner believes that after a while, things will “ease out and then footfall should be in the range of one to one-and-a-half lakh or a maximum of 2 lakh a day”.
Giving details about investment in tourism, Dayal said Ayodhya “had drawn 101 MoUs with a proposed investment of Rs 17,947.94 crore, which will create 24,712 job opportunities”.
He further said that mostly “investment is coming under the tourism sector since Ayodhya is a temple town. And we are also taking care of infrastructure at other places of importance (nearby)”.
Ayodhya is not only home to the Ram temple and the area around it, “but there are so many other beautiful places here and there are 37 mutt mandirs which we are taking under infrastructure upgrade”, he told ThePrint.
“So, the entire city and a lot of locations around Ayodhya which are places of importance are also being taken up (for development) so that devotees can visit all of them. The tourism sector is what we are focusing on right now. And I believe that it will give a massive boost not only to Ayodhya’s economy but the entire region around the town,” he added.
How ‘shabby’ town was turned around
Dayal enumerated the challenges the administration faced in transforming the city, saying that the general appearance of the town had been shabby.
“Just like any other town, we had to really deck up the place, meaning that not only did infrastructure have to be developed, the appearance had to be improved. When road widening was done, a lot of buildings were affected. In the reconstruction phase, we realised that we had to do a strict facade control. Within a period of less than two months, we were able to reconstruct the entire town,” he explained.
“The facade development (beautification, streetscaping, etc) is part of the 13-km stretch of Ram Path, Bhakti Path and Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Path. Now, the city looks so pleasant and has a thematic appearance. We came up with uniform guidelines, and we are undertaking awareness campaigns throughout the city,” he added.
Ram Path, Bhakti Path, Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Path and Dharma Path are the roads from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and other dignitaries will reach Ayodhya Monday.
Dayal also credited Adityanath for his “guidance”. “The transformation that happened was a combination of the guidance of the honourable CM. Further, a lot of hard work was put in by the entire team. Everybody was driven by passion and inspiration because we knew that this was a great moment and we had to live up to it,” he said.
Speaking about the Surya Stambh, pillars with a circular glass light symbolising the sun installed atop, and which have been put up on Dharma Path, Dayal said the idea for the structure came from a design competition held by the administration.
“We used to do a lot of global design competitions to get new ideas for beautification because we are not trained for these things. Civil society has really great ideas. This came from one of the design competitions. The idea was kind of raw, but then we decided that yes, it (Surya Stambh) would really deck up the place and the grand look that you see of Dharma Path is actually because of the pillars,” he told ThePrint.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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