VHP to start fund-raising drive in Karnataka for Ram temple
The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) will rope in over five lakh volunteers to start a door-to-door fundraising drive in Karnataka from January 15 to February 27, 2021, to build a grand Sri Ram Temple in Ayodhya, the outfit's international working president Alok Kumar said on Tuesday. A committee called Sri Ram Mandir Nidhi Samarpan Abhiyan Samiti has been formed to oversee the collection drive.
"We are going to form a group comprising volunteers who will go to 27,500 villages in the state and will be able to contact 90 lakh 'devotees' for obtaining the 'Nidhi Samarpan' (fund for temple)," Kumar added.
According to Kumar, RSS functionary N Thippeswamy will be the secretary of the Karnataka Samiti, which will be guided by a committee of saints. The fund would be collected through tokens of Rs. 10, Rs. 100, Rs. 1,000. For those who donate more than Rs. 2,000, there will be a receipt. These donations will be exempted under 80G of the Income Tax Act.
The VHP president said every group will consist of five persons who will hand over money to the depositor. "Every depositor will have a registered code number at the nearest branch of one of the three banks namely State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank. Full transparency would be maintained in the collection," he added.
The three-story stone structure with five mandaps and an estimated life of 1,000 years will be built without using cement and iron rods and will cover a total area of 2.7 acres. "For the stability of the structure, engineers from IIT Mumbai, IIT Delhi, IIT Chennai, IIT Guwahati, CBRI Roorkee, Larsen & Toubro are working on the foundation drawing," he further explained.
Besides the temple, there will be several other projects spread over 108 acres, Kumar said, adding that all of them will be of world standard and marvelous in all aspects. "We want to abolish all the differences related to caste, region, and linguistics with this temple to build a harmonious society," Kumar said, adding that they will not be collecting money from public bodies.
In August, PM Narendra Modi performed the 'Bhoomi Pujan' of a Supreme Court-mandated Ram temple in Ayodhya. On November 9, 2019, the SC settled the age-old fractious issue by backing the construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site. An alternative five-acre plot has been allotted to the Sunni Central Waqf Board to build a mosque.
