Ayodhya

Shri Ram Janambhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, general secretary Champat Rai, has said that "crowd funding for the Ram temple was the world's biggest fund-raising campaign and people can still donate online through the new Trust website. Foreign devotees are requested to wait a little more. They will be notified on completion of FCRA formalities".

Rai said that donations for temple construction have crossed Rs 2,500 crore, based on bank receipts till February 4.

"Around 9 lakh VHP cadres split into 1.75 lakh teams to launch the door-to-door campaign across the country and funds were deposited in banks by 38,125 volunteers. To ensure transparency, 49 control rooms worked round-the-clock with 23 qualified volunteers and chartered accountants monitoring deposits from the nodal centre at Delhi. The app created by Hyderabad-based Dhanusha Infotech Company helped in the operations," he said.

An audit of the funds-raising campaign would be completed by March-end.

"Devotees have made their contributions. From the Northeast, people of Arunachal Pradesh contributed Rs 4.5 crore, Manipur Rs 2 crore, Mizoram Rs 0.2 crore, Nagaland Rs 0.3 crore, Meghalaya Rs 0.9 crore. Devotees from Tamil Nadu contributed Rs 85 crore and Kerala Rs 13 crore," he said.

Crowd-funding for the Ram temple, which ended last week had touched over 10 crore families in 4 lakh villages across India in a well-coordinated drive that included a meticulously-built digital network, bridging volunteers, banks and the temple trust.

Forty-nine control rooms were set up across the country to ensure transparency and seamless coordination.