UP: Wait for mosque construction work to start in Ayodhya's Dhanipur likely to end soon

Lucknow: Entangled first in obtaining no-objection certificates (NOCs), followed by a delay in the change of land use, the wait for the construction of the Dhannipur mosque in Ayodhya district of Uttar Pradesh is finally set to end soon. A mosque, a hospital, a research institute, a community kitchen and a library are to be constructed by the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF) trust on five acres of land given by the state government. The matter of change of land use has been pending with the Ayodhya Development Authority (ADA) for the last four months. It is expected to be resolved by this week.

ADA Chairman and Ayodhya Divisional Commissioner Gaurav Dayal told PTI that the decision on the issue of change in land use will be taken up this week.

"We have received instructions from the government. The issue will be taken up on Monday and a decision will be taken this week," he said.

Arshad Khan, the local trustee of the IICF trust, said an application was given in July 2020, seeking approval for the construction of the mosque, the hospital, the research institute, the community kitchen and the library on the land allocated in Dhannipur village of Ayodhya.

The construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya was approved a few days before that, even though the application was submitted offline, he added.

"When we applied for change of land use, the ADA said the application should be made online. On conveying the trust's inability to do so, people from the authority filed the application online. As the application was submitted online, the portal demanded 15-16 NOCs," Khan said, adding that it took the trust more than a year to acquire the documents.

"When the matter was brought to the the then district magistrate's notice, he helped us get an NOC. After the NOC arrived, the issue of land use change came up in October last year," he said.

Khan said whenever the ADA is asked about the delay in the change of land use, it says the matter will be resolved at the next board meeting.

In a historic judgment on November 9, 2019, the Supreme Court ordered the construction of a Ram temple at a disputed site in Ayodhya and asked the government to allocate five acres of land for the construction of a mosque at a prominent place in the district.

The IICF trust, constituted for the construction of the mosque, announced its plans to build a hospital, a community kitchen, a library and a research institute, along with the mosque.

Trust secretary Athar Hussain had hoped that the formalities related to land-use change would be completed by the end of November last year. It was expected that the construction work of the mosque and other facilities would start in December and the structure would be built in a year's time.