Five NE States give Rs 8 crore for Ram Mandir

GUWAHATI, Mar 19
Five States from the North East region have contributed Rs 7.84 crore towards the construction of the upcoming Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
A tweet from the official Twitter handle of the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust on March 6 said Arunachal Pradesh had contributed Rs 4.5 crore, Manipur Rs 2 crore, Mizoram Rs 21 lakh, Nagaland Rs 28 lakh, and Meghalaya Rs 85 lakh for the purpose.
The amount would go up substantially once the figures for Assam, Tripura and Sikkim are also available.
“Based on the bank receipts received till March 4 the samarpan (donation) amount from the region will be much higher,” member, Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra, Dr Anil Mishra told EastMojo in a telephonic interview.
According to another tweet sent out by the trust the same day, Rs 2,500 crore was collected from across the country.
World’s largest crowdfunding exercise
In what has been billed as the world’s largest crowdfunding exercise to date, voluntary contributions were accepted at branches of notified public sector banks, through door-to-door canvassing, and online.
For its part, the Government of India made a token donation of Re 1 to the trust in February.
“Even as the world’s biggest campaign since January 15, 2021, for construction of the grand temple of Bhagwan Shri Ram at Ayodhya completed on February 27, 2021, it unified Bharatvarsh from east to west and north to south,” the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra said in another tweet.
“We have consciously decided against segregating donors based on their religion and gender. Anyone contributing towards the construction of the grand temple in Ayodhya is first and foremost a Ram Bhakt and believed in the continuity of the Indic civilisation,” Dr Mishra remarked on being quizzed about the donors’ profiles.
Although the amount may appear insignificant when compared against the National average, except for Assam, the entire North Eastern region is sparsely inhabited, with a total population of 4.55 crore. Besides, as per the 2011 population census, the States of Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya have a majority Christian population. Manipur and Arunachal also have a sizeable Christian population.
Immediately after the Supreme Court judgment clearing the decks for the temple in Ayodhya on November 9, 2019, Jonogusthiya Somonnoy Parishad Asom (JSPA) had committed Rs 5 lakh to the trust. JSPA is an umbrella organisation representing 21 indigenous Muslim bodies in the State.
The campaign reached out to over 4 lakh villages as well as all the wards in urban centres. Although final statistics are not out yet, nearly 10 crore families were reached. Sources at Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra have said that in several instances, even beggars, day workers and marginal farmers generously contributed to the Ram Temple.
About 9 lakh volunteers in 1,75,000 teams of four to five people each were involved in the outreach. The donations were deposited in different bank branches by over 38,000 volunteers.
To ensure campaign transparency, 49 control rooms worked across the country. Two chartered accountants oversaw a team of 23 hand-picked volunteers, who, in turn, were in regular touch with the entire network to monitor the accounts.
The trust will likely complete the audit of the entire amount by March-end.  Eastmojo