The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday greenlit a proposal from Tata Sons to build a museum of temples in Ayodhya at a cost of Rs 650 crore, reported The Indian Express.

Tata Sons is the holding company of Tata firms.

The Indian Temple Museum will be built by the company as a part of its corporate social responsibility initiative in Ayodhya’s Manjha Jamthara village. In addition to the Rs 650 crore, the company will spend Rs 100 crore on setting up basic infrastructure at the site.

Uttar Pradesh Tourism Minister Jaiveer Singh said that the land for the museum will be provided on a 90-year lease by the tourism department at Re 1 a year.

A tripartite agreement between the Union Ministry of Culture, the Uttar Pradesh government and Tata Sons has been signed to build and run the museum.

This comes months after the Ram temple in Ayodhya was inaugurated in a ceremony led by Prime Minister Modi.

The temple, consecrated on January 22, is being built on the site of the Babri mosque, which was demolished by Hindutva extremists in December 1992 because they believed that it stood on the spot where the Hindu deity Ram was born. The incident had triggered communal riots across the country.

In November 2019, the Supreme Court held that the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992 was illegal but handed over the land to a trust for a Ram temple to be constructed. At the same time, it directed that a five-acre plot in Ayodhya be allotted to Muslims for a mosque to be constructed.

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