Alfred Ford, great great grandson of American industrialist Henry Ford, would partly fund upcoming Rs 400 crore Iskcon temple at Mayapur in West Bengal. "I have given some seed capital for the huge dream project of Srila Prabhupada, founder of the Iskcon movement, for construction of a temple at the birthplace of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu," Ford told reporters here today.
He said the project would be ready by 2016 after which there would be an exponential growth in the number of pilgrims and tourists visiting Mayapur. Presently, number of visitors to the existing temple at Mayapur is four million, Ford, a disciple of Prabhupada, said. Once through, the temple would be taller than the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and the temple's dome diameter and floor space would be bigger than St Paul's Cathedral in London, he added.
Sharmila Bhattacharya Ford, his Bengali wife, said it would be a spectacular sight once the structure, covering an area of 4.25 lakh square feet on 1.5 acres, comes up. Another disciple, Anand Poddar, said the Queen of England and President of India would be invited to inaugurate the temple, which would be built with pure stainless steel.
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