Delivery of Non-Vegetarian Food ‘Banned’ in 15-km Radius Around Ayodhya Ram Temple: Reports

New Delhi: The authorities in Ayodhya this week ‘banned’ the delivery of non-vegetarian food items within a 15-kilometre radius of the Ram temple in the city, media reports said.

They took this decision on Friday (January 9) after receiving repeated complaints about food delivery platforms ferrying non-vegetarian items in areas marked as part of the ‘panch kosi parikrama’, PTI cited official sources as saying. The panch kosi parikrama is a religious tradition that involves traversing a 15-kilometre-long perimeter in the city.

“Following the complaints, the ban on online non-vegetarian food delivery has been imposed,” the news agency quoted Ayodhya's assistant food commissioner Manik Chandra Singh as saying.

Authorities have also warned establishments in Ayodhya to ‘refrain from’ serving non-vegetarian food and alcohol, PTI cited unnamed officials as saying.

The move comes months after the Ayodhya Municipal Corporation passed a resolution in favour of a ban on the sale of meat and liquor along the 14-kilometre-long Ram Path in the city, in addition to the sale of paan, gutka, beedi and cigarettes as well as advertisements for undergarments.

PTI cited locals as saying that alcohol continues to be sold along the Path nine months after the resolution was passed. An unidentified municipal officer said that the corporation had removed meat shops along the stretch but that the district administration's permission was needed to take action against liquor vendors.

Ayodhya's Ram temple has been built on the site of the Babri Masjid that was demolished in 1992 by Hindu nationalists who claimed the mosque was built on the spot where Lord Ram was born. The razing of the mosque sparked riots in various parts of India in which Muslims were predominant among those killed.

Policies such as the recent one in Ayodhya are some among numerous initiatives taken in the country to prohibit the sale of meat or liquor around Hindu temples and processions.

Uttar Pradesh, which Ayodhya is part of, is prominent among the states imposing such restrictions – which have at times gone beyond meat sales to include controversial directions to food vendors to display their names amid the kanwar yatra – but they have been implemented elsewhere too, including around Sikh places of worship in Punjab.

These moves are hotly contested by many who argue that most people in the country eat non-vegetarian food and that such prohibitions affect local economies.

Some civic bodies had even gone to the extent of banning the sale of meat on the secular occasion of Independence Day last year.

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