NRIs of UK opened the largest Hindu temple near Birmingham city in UK

Birmingham city, Aug. 24, 2006
Ashok Patel

The largest Hindu temple in Europe is opening in the West Midlands, near Birmingham city with a five-day religious festival. More than 10,000 visitors are expected in a five day festival of inauguration.

• The design and architecture of the temple is based on one of the holiest sites in the Hindu world, the Tirupati-Tirumala Temple in India.
  
• The temple has been built on the site of a former tip in Dudley Road East, which was donated by the Black Country Development Corporation in 1987
  
• The temple project has been funded by a £3.3m lottery grant from the Millennium Commission and has taken more than three decades to come to fruition. The NRI group began fundraising nationwide and in 1996 they were approved lottery funding. Three founder members of the project invested £100,000 of their own money to prevent the project going bankrupt.
  
• This temple will accommodate more than 400 people.The festival will culminate with installation of a 12ft deity of Lord Krishna, the supreme Hindu god.
  
• From India, fifteen priests were flown to UK to perform ancient rituals in Sanskrit to pray gods to enter the ''Kumbhabhishekam'' of Shri Venkateswara Balaji Temple. Dr. VP Narayan Rao, the founding chairman of the temple, said: 'The priests are trained from the age of seven to do the chanting. Only these people can do it.

  In 1999 the first of three smaller shrines adjacent to the site of the main temple was completed. A team of 600 builders started work in India on the main temple building. The granite, concrete, and other structure was built in stages in India and brought in UK to put together. Very highly-skilled 30 crafsmen were brought from India to UK for carvings of Hindu gods and godesses inside the temple.

  NRI, Bimal Krishna Das, secretary of the National Council of Hindu Temples, said: 'This is great news for the British Hindu community. The opening of this great temple will be a wonderful addition to the multi-religious society of Britain, especially in West Midlands.' Dr. Kandiah Somasundara Rajah, has been involved with this project since 1970. He said: 'We used to have the use of another temple but then the congregation got bigger and in 1974 some of our group thought we should get our own temple.

The largest Hindu temple in Europe, Shri Venkateswara (Balaji) Temple of the UK in Tividale. with the cost of £6.5m

• It is situated on a 13-acre site in Dudley Road East in Tividale, near Birmingham city