Nearly five lakh devotees visited the Ram temple on the first day the new temple was opened for devotees, perhaps a record for the number of pilgrims visiting any religious place in India in a single day.

This was much more than the government’s expectation of about one lakh devotees per day at the Ram temple. After the initial excitement, the crowd can eventually reach around 1-3 lakh devotees per day, with the figure being even higher on weekends. This could mean that more than five crore devotees visit Ayodhya every year and this could be more than the number of devotees visiting Mecca or the Vatican as well as other top religious places in India such as Tirupati Balaji in Andhra Pradesh .

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The new religious triangle of Ayodhya, Varanasi and Prayagraj is going to become the center of pilgrimage boom in Uttar Pradesh and its economy. The Ram temple will be completely ready by the end of this year and following the latest instructions from the Prime Minister, work on the entire complex is expected to accelerate and be completed by mid-2025.

Prayagraj Mahakumbh will be organized in January-March 2025. A large number of pilgrims are already flocking to the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor on the banks of the Ganga in Varanasi.

With Vande Bharat-like roads and excellent connectivity by expressway, air and rail, the three religious hubs can see tourists planning package trips to UP – a visit to Ayodhya’s Ram temple, a dip in the Sangam in Prayagraj, and a visit to Varanasi. Dip in the Ganga. Visit Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

This could become the major driving force behind UP’s goal of becoming a $1 trillion economy in the coming years. UP could see tax collection of Rs 25,000 crore in 2024-25, with Ayodhya being a major factor as devotees are coming not only from across India but from different parts of the world, a paper by SBI Research said. Tourism alone can make UP richer by about Rs 4 lakh crore this year.

As per the current estimate, Ayodhya may overtake Vatican City and Mecca in terms of the number of devotees visiting, if the Yogi Adityanath government works on this in a mission mode in the coming months, the infrastructure and accommodation facilities in Ayodhya will be improved. Features are expanded at the same pace. ,

Tirupati Balaji in Andhra Pradesh receives 2.5 crore devotees annually, Mecca in Saudi Arabia receives a similar number of devotees and Vatican receives approximately 90 lakh devotees annually.

Other highly visited sites are Vaishno Devi in ​​Jammu and Kashmir which is visited by 80 lakh people annually while Taj Mahal attracts 70 lakh people.

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News18 spent about 10 days in Ayodhya and observed that several new hotels had opened up to accommodate the rush of pilgrims. The number of existing ashrams, dharamshalas and homestays in the city is limited, but considering the number of devotees arriving here, more will be required. Road infrastructure inside the city has been improved, but tension was visible on Tuesday when half a million devotees thronged the Ram Path in an attempt to reach the temple. People had to walk several kilometers as electric buses and battery carts could not accommodate the rush of people in Ayodhya.

The UP government needs to gear up for this challenge so that the opportunities can be converted into success and the potential can be realized. Ayodhya is now a small town with unlimited possibilities as the grand Ram temple has become an attraction for devotees.