A woman from Chennai gave a check for 40 million rupees intended to fund staff welfare at the Ram Temple in India’s Ayodhya. But after temple authorities deposited the check at the bank, it turned out the woman’s bank account held just 3 rupees. As a result, the check bounced.
According to Indian media reports, the woman had given the check to the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust. After the trust deposited it at the bank, the bank said there were insufficient funds in the account to cover the check. The bank is preparing to send the woman a notice asking her to explain.
The woman had separately donated 10,000 rupees to the temple as well. She had asked the trust for written assurance that the 40 million rupees would be spent solely on staff welfare at the temple. The trust did not provide such assurance. Efforts are now under way to resolve the matter through discussion.
Earlier, in 2020, a “Nidhi Samarpan Abhiyan” campaign for building the Ram Temple raised roughly 35 billion rupees in 45 days. At the time, checks worth roughly 1 billion rupees initially bounced, though most of the money was later recovered. However, roughly 220 million rupees has still not been recovered.
The Ram Temple currently receives roughly 30 million to 40 million rupees a month in donations through cash, online transfers and checks. Of this, roughly 10 million to 15 million rupees comes through checks.
The trust has not yet issued any official statement on the incident. Last June, an incident of theft and embezzlement of temple donation funds also came to light.
The construction of the Ram Temple in India’s Ayodhya, and the historic land it sits on, has long been the subject of dispute. In 1992, a radical Hindu nationalist group demolished the historic 16th-century Babri Masjid, triggering severe rioting and loss of life nationwide.
In a 2019 ruling, India’s Supreme Court directed that the Babri Masjid site be given to Hindus for construction of the Ram Temple, with alternative land provided to Muslims for building a mosque. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the temple in January 2024.