The ongoing economic recession has also affected the religious activities badly. The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) has taken up a project of building a huge temple (named Chandrodaya Temple) at Mayapur which is now impeded with shortage of fund.
The cost of the temple project was estimated at Rs 600 crore, a greater portion of which would come as donations from 14 crore devotees spread over many countries. But according to the ISKCON authorities the budget fell short of Rs 200 crores and to fill in the gap they had decided to sell off their landed property at the heart of Kolkata. For that they had floated tender inviting offer from interested parties for their landed property at 22 Gurusaday Dutta Road at south Kolkata. According to the tender notice the land measuring 35971 sq. ft. (0.83 acre approx.) is available for ready purchase and the notice also underscored the point that '' time is the essence of the cotract'' and specified that 30 days time would be given to submit the offers.
The tender was opened on 2nd September and it was found that Of the four participants in the tender,namely, Tata Housing, Sapoorji Palonji, Godrej and Emami, the Emami group emerged as the highest bidder. But their offer of Rs 135 crore fell much short of the base price of Rs 200 crores. So, the ISKCON trustee and the committee in charge of looking after the tender process in its meeting on that day rejected the offer and decided to go for a fresh tender. It is learnt from ISKCON that representatives of Shahrukh Khan and M SDhoni also made enquiries about the tender, but they did not pick up the tender papers.
According to ISKCON people, special quality steel for the temple construction is being imported from Germany and already the foundation and basic structure are complete. and Gammon India has been entrusted with the civil work. The domes and the super structure will be built by another company while the task of the interior work will be entrusted with one or more than one companies.
But, according to the ISKCON authorities, the biggest challenge they are facing now is the fund raising job. Already they have launched a programme called ''One square foot or One'', under which one can donate US $150 for a square foot of space in the temple or US $1500 for a square meter space.
But while the donations might come trickling in the ISKCON authorities realsied that to keep up the momentum of the construction and to complete the project within the stipulated time they need to mobilsie large volume of fund at a time.
Thus they came to the decision of selling their real estate property at south Kolkata. The property was donated to ISKCON by one of their devotees, after initial hesitation they decided to sell it off. But, the recession hit market was perhaps not prepared to shell out the base price of Rs 200 crore for that.
It is learnt that the ISKCON started negotiating with Emami group to find outif they were ready to jack the price up a bit. Failing that they will go for fresh tender.
The cost of the temple project was estimated at Rs 600 crore, a greater portion of which would come as donations from 14 crore devotees spread over many countries. But according to the ISKCON authorities the budget fell short of Rs 200 crores and to fill in the gap they had decided to sell off their landed property at the heart of Kolkata. For that they had floated tender inviting offer from interested parties for their landed property at 22 Gurusaday Dutta Road at south Kolkata. According to the tender notice the land measuring 35971 sq. ft. (0.83 acre approx.) is available for ready purchase and the notice also underscored the point that '' time is the essence of the cotract'' and specified that 30 days time would be given to submit the offers.
The tender was opened on 2nd September and it was found that Of the four participants in the tender,namely, Tata Housing, Sapoorji Palonji, Godrej and Emami, the Emami group emerged as the highest bidder. But their offer of Rs 135 crore fell much short of the base price of Rs 200 crores. So, the ISKCON trustee and the committee in charge of looking after the tender process in its meeting on that day rejected the offer and decided to go for a fresh tender. It is learnt from ISKCON that representatives of Shahrukh Khan and M SDhoni also made enquiries about the tender, but they did not pick up the tender papers.
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Some months back, Alfred Ford, the great grand son of the founder of the Ford Motor company Henry Ford and a devotee of ISKCON, announced in Kolkata that the construction of Chandrodaya Temple (alternately called Temple of the Vedic Planetorium), which began two years back would be complete in 2016. The proposed temple will be bigger than the Hagia Sophia of Istanbul . The first phase of the temple is being built by Alfred Ford.
According to ISKCON people, special quality steel for the temple construction is being imported from Germany and already the foundation and basic structure are complete. and Gammon India has been entrusted with the civil work. The domes and the super structure will be built by another company while the task of the interior work will be entrusted with one or more than one companies.
But, according to the ISKCON authorities, the biggest challenge they are facing now is the fund raising job. Already they have launched a programme called ''One square foot or One'', under which one can donate US $150 for a square foot of space in the temple or US $1500 for a square meter space.
But while the donations might come trickling in the ISKCON authorities realsied that to keep up the momentum of the construction and to complete the project within the stipulated time they need to mobilsie large volume of fund at a time.
Thus they came to the decision of selling their real estate property at south Kolkata. The property was donated to ISKCON by one of their devotees, after initial hesitation they decided to sell it off. But, the recession hit market was perhaps not prepared to shell out the base price of Rs 200 crore for that.
It is learnt that the ISKCON started negotiating with Emami group to find outif they were ready to jack the price up a bit. Failing that they will go for fresh tender.