Ayodhya Ram Temple's ground floor construction to be completed by October: Reports

The temple will be consecrated next January ahead of the 2024 general elections.

The work on the ground floor is at the final stage and Ram Janambhoomi Trust member Nripendra Mishra took stock of the situation on Monday, according to reports.

Last year, Union home minister Amit Shah had promised that the temple will be ready for inauguration by January 1.

The date for the consecration of the statue has not been fixed and is likely to take place after Makar Sankranti.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who laid the foundation stone on August 5, 2020, will be present for the ceremony.

The temple is expected to be a milestone for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which considers the temple movement a basis for its emergence as a national electoral force in the 1990s.

The construction at the site started in August 2020 after the Supreme Court ended decades of a legal tussle with a milestone verdict in 2019 that went in favour of a temple.

Around four lakh cubic feet of stone and marble from Rajasthan will be used for the structure, which will tower 161 feet over the sanctum sanctorum as there will be no use of steel or bricks.

The other structures inside the complex will include a Shiva temple on the Kuber mound and the statue of Jatayu, which are expected to attract devotees.

The complex will also include a pilgrim facilitation centre, museum, archives, research centre, auditorium, cattle shed, a place for rituals, an administrative building and rooms for priests.