Unstable Soil, Labour Shortage: Hurdles Ayodhya Ram Mandir Had To Clear During Construction
The ground floor work of the three-storey Ram temple, which is in the traditional Nagar style, has been completed while the rest of the construction is expected to be completed by some time in 2025.
The grand Ram Temple is rising in Ayodhya, with a mega consecration ceremony planned for January 22. The construction of the temple began soon after the historic judgment by the Supreme Court in November 2019. The ground floor work of the three-storey Ram temple, which is in the traditional Nagar style, has been completed while the rest of the construction is expected to be completed by some time in 2025.
Just days before the mega consecration ceremony by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the temple's construction committee chairman Nripendra Mishra said the temple will have a sanctum sanctorum, and five mandaps, and that the temple will be on the ground floor. "That temple is complete," he said, adding that the first floor, which is under construction, will have Ram Darbar.
Ram Temple: Construction And Challenges
Mishra, former Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Modi, recently shared the temple construction process and the challenges that were faced during these years ever since the construction began.
Labour Shortage
In a podcast aired in November 2023, Mishra said that there was a huge shortage of labour, which came up suddenly because of the festive season and that was adversely in some manner slowing down the construction of the temple and the dateline of December 31 which the trust had to stick. "I got the news that they have got 3,500 workers. They are working day and night now, which is working on all sides," he told ANI.
Construction firm L&T is building the Ram temple, whose work is being monitored by Tata. L&T is responsible for recruiting workers, Mishra said. For each thing, workers are different. For instance, for iconography, workers have been brought from Odisha, and the work of placement of stones is being handled by workers from Rajasthan. The workers are largely from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Rajasthan.
Unstable Soil
As construction began, the engineers encountered their first biggest challenge when they found out that the soil where the foundation was to be laid was not stable. Mishra said that this could have been because of the Saryu passed through this area a few hundred years ago.
"Because of that, the soil was loose," he told the news agency. "Experts said that the foundation would not be suitable due to this. We were advised by IIT-Chennai, which was one of our advisory members, that we could dig the entire area up to a depth of 15 metres and remove the soil first and then fill it with re-engineered soil."
This re-engineered soil is of a mixed quality, which in about 14 days converts itself into a stone-like structure. "So the foundation itself is made of stone." On that, he said, engineers have got the raft which again is about 2-2.5 metres. On that, they have placed a granite plinth, which is another metre-and-a-half in width. And over that, the stone, which is the temple, was laid. So the temple has come up after the construction of the foundation, raft, and plinth.
Earthquake Resistance
Another challenge that the temple builders had to overcome was to make the structure earthquake-resistant. A former PMO official said the Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), which is also a consultant, was responsible for ensuring that the temple is able to undertake the jolts of earthquakes 50 times of all quakes recorded till now.
"So right from Nepal to Ayodhya," he said, "the intensity of earthquakes till now was measured". "Then it was simulated in the laboratory and that strength was provided to this foundation raft and over that the stone. That is why we believe that (the temple), after what we have done, would last for a thousand years," he told ANI.
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