Ram Temple Trust Seeks a CEO to Repair Cash Handling

The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust meets Wednesday to name its first chief executive officer from three still-unnamed candidates. Trustees created the post in July after police arrested eight people over stolen temple donations.

The shortlist is the product of 5,585 applications, 16 interviews in Ayodhya, and a search panel that says it kept parties and sadhu bodies out of the room. The job the winner inherits is more counting room than pulpit.

The Trust Invented a CEO After the Donation Scandal

On 6 July 2026, in its first sitting after the donation case broke, the Trust accepted the resignations of general secretary Champat Rai and trustee Anil Mishra, removed temple administrator Gopal Rao, and created a CEO post that had not existed since the Trust was formed on 5 February 2020. Retired Indian Forest Service officer Krishna Mohan, an RSS functionary, was named interim general secretary.

Ayodhya police had registered an FIR on 25 June naming eight people tied to cash and valuables counting, then taken all eight into custody. Investigators recovered nearly ₹80 lakh (₹79,85,893) from seven of them, with no cash found on counting in-charge Subhash Srivastava. Among those held was Ramashankar Yadav, also called Tinnu Yadav, a former driver to Rai who, the SIT said, held keys to several hundis, the donation pots placed around the complex.

Before the arrests, Rai had said in a video that counting was audited with State Bank of India staff and that nobody had noticed a discrepancy. A former accounts supervisor, Mahipal Singh, had already gone public as the person who first flagged the leak. The SIT later told the state that cash was being diverted while it was collected and counted, before it reached Trust bank accounts.

People who compare those accounts with later deposits put the daily drain at ₹6 lakh to ₹8 lakh. Average daily credits, they said, ran ₹16 lakh to ₹18 lakh before the case became public, then ₹24 lakh to ₹26 lakh once the counting room was under watch. The CEO hire is the Trust’s answer to that gap: a salaried manager told to write standard procedures for a shrine that had been run by trustees and volunteers.

Daily Crowds Fill About 35 Donation Boxes

The three-storey temple, spread over 2.7 acres and consecrated on 22 January 2024, now draws 70,000 to 80,000 devotees on a typical day, with weekends and festivals running far higher. Most leave cash, coins or jewellery in about 35 to 40 boxes. Annual income in 2024-25 was put at ₹327 crore ($35 million), among the largest temple hauls in the country. Annual footfall is put near 50 million in a study of Ayodhya’s pilgrim economy.

Figures laid before the Trust’s executive committee on 21 March show how that money arrived in the following year, and how much of the Trust’s income is interest on money already in the bank.

THE TRUST’S INCOME, APRIL 2025 TO FEBRUARY 2026

Box gifts, counters, online transfers and foreign contributions add to ₹82.78 crore. Interest on deposits, ₹138.03 crore, was larger than that entire fresh take. Treasurer Govind Dev Giri has separately said devotees had given ₹582 crore by 31 March 2026, of which ₹319 crore had been spent on upkeep.

Other large Uttar Pradesh shrines already run tighter cash drills, with magistrates present at counts, cameras on the notes, and same-day banking. The SIT’s early file on Ayodhya described a chain of collection, transport, sorting, bundling and deposit with weak splits of duty.

WHERE THE COUNTING ROOM BROKE DOWN

• Hundi keys: A former driver to the general secretary held keys to several donation pots, against the Trust’s own rules.
• Camera files: Footage of counting was kept for 45 days, not the 180 days the procedure required.
• Hiring: The counting in-charge was appointed on the word of one of the Trust’s top three office-bearers, the SIT said.
• Kin on the desk: Tinnu Yadav, investigators said, placed a relative in the cash-counting unit.

Those are management failures in a shop that handles tens of thousands of visitors a day. They are also why the search panel kept asking about finance, stores, people and temple systems, not only about faith.

5,585 Applications, Then a Three-Name Panel

The Trust opened applications on 14 July and closed them on 18 July. Search committee secretary Sameer Panda said 5,585 forms came in and were screened with software and by hand. Of those, 3,877 people sent detailed CVs. Sixteen candidates, under 0.3 percent of the pool, were called to the temple complex on 11 and 12 August.

The panel is retired judge Justice Pramod Kohli, retired Lt Gen Vishnu Kant Chaturvedi (PVSM, AVSM, SM), and retired nuclear scientist Suresh Haware. Kohli told reporters the process was fair and that the Trust would now choose among the three. Panda said no BJP, RSS, VHP or other organisation “ever interfered or recommended anyone’s names for the CEO post.”

On 1 September the committee handed its report to Giri at the temple, with interim general secretary Krishna Mohan, trustee Mahant Dinendra Das and Ayodhya district magistrate Shashank Tripathi present. In English, the Trust said the committee had submitted a final panel of three after those 5,585 applications and the 16 interviews, and that the Trust would make the final call.

THE ROAD TO A THREE-NAME PANEL

1. July 6, 2026: Trust accepts two resignations, creates the CEO post and names the search committee.
2. July 14, 2026: Applications open; the candidate must be a practising Hindu, aged 50 to 70, with 20 years of management work.
3. July 18, 2026: The window closes after 5,585 applications.
4. July 22, 2026: Religious affairs go to a reconstituted saints’ panel; CEO selection is put off because of the volume of forms.
5. August 11-12, 2026: Sixteen finalists sit for in-person meetings inside the complex.
6. September 1, 2026: Kohli’s committee delivers a three-name panel to the Trust.
7. September 2, 2026: Trustees meet at president Nritya Gopal Das’s residence to pick one and talk pay.

Panda called the three people the highest calibre of leadership, management skill, integrity and vision the post needed. Kohli said he believed, with Lord Ram’s blessings, the rest of the process would go smoothly.

The Final Three Remain Unnamed

Neither the committee nor the Trust has published the three names. People close to the process say all three are from Uttar Pradesh, that they have worked in different parts of the country on government bodies and large projects, and that one is a retired military officer. They also say none is a bureaucrat or a police officer, against weeks of talk that a retired IAS or IPS officer would get the job.

That last point collides with names still being passed around in Ayodhya: retired Uttar Pradesh IPS officer Rajesh Pandey, former IAS officer Yogeshwar Ram Mishra, Bihar police officer Paresh Saxena, and other retired civil servants who did appear in the wider interview field. Those men were among the people who walked into the August sittings. They have not been confirmed as the final three, and the Trust has not corrected or blessed any list.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The count: The committee has given the Trust three names and no public biographies.
• The geography: People associated with the process say all three are from Uttar Pradesh.
• The military file: One of the three is described as a retired military officer.
• The IAS rumour: The same people say the final three are not bureaucrats or police officers.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The identities: Names of retired IAS and IPS officers remain in circulation and unverified as the panel.
• The announcement: Giri said he expects a name, but the Trust will decide whether to announce it at once.
• The pay: Monthly pay is to be negotiated with whoever is chosen; no figure has been posted.

Keeping the names in the envelope until the trustees sit is a process choice. It also leaves a hole. A hire meant to rebuild public confidence after a cash theft is being finished in a closed meeting, while the people who applied, and the devotees who fill the boxes, still do not know who made the last cut.

What the First Ram Temple CEO Will Do

The July notice said the CEO will serve a three-year term, report to the general secretary, and need at least 20 years of management work in a large public body, government department or company. The person must be an actively practising Hindu; a Ram devotee from the Vaishnava tradition is desirable. Applicants had to be graduates aged 50 to 70, pure vegetarians and teetotallers. Preference was listed for anyone who had been a chief administrative officer or had run a temple or Hindu religious institution. Retired officers could apply. Pay would be set after talks.

A 15-point annexure sat behind that notice. The CEO is to write standard procedures, systems and protocols for daily work, manage pilgrim facilities, coordinate major religious events, and deal with government agencies and other parties around the complex. Every decision still has to follow the original trust deed, with approvals from the general secretary and permanent trustees. The new manager works under the Trust, not over it.

That reporting line matters. Krishna Mohan remains interim general secretary. A saints’ panel has held religious affairs since 22 July. Wednesday’s agenda also covers the first amendments to the trust deed since 2020, plus vacant trustee seats and a secretary’s post. The CEO can be told to lock the hundis, film the count, and move cash to the bank the same day. The CEO cannot rewrite who sits above that desk unless the deed changes.

Interview questions reportedly went into diet, drink, the sacred thread and whether a candidate had read the Ramcharitmanas. Those tests match the notice. They do not, on their own, rebuild a counting room that kept camera files for 45 days. The person who gets the job will be judged on deposits, queues and whether another inside theft can be staged.

Haware’s Shirdi Years Shape the Shortlist

Haware spent 27 years in the Department of Atomic Energy, wrote a book titled Temple Management, chairs NIT Raipur, and sits on the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board. He also spent three years as Shirdi trust chairperson, from 28 July 2016 to 28 July 2019. Shirdi’s own CEO office has often been filled by district collectors and IAS officers. Ayodhya’s panel, if the people close to the process are right, has now put up three names with no IAS or IPS officer among them, even with a Shirdi veteran in the room.

A dry professional cannot run a temple like this. The primary necessity is Ram ke prati shraddha ka bhav (devotion towards Ram). The second is a spirit of service towards society and respect for devotees. Only after that will we look at experience in finance, HR, material management, institutional administration and temple management.

Suresh Haware, search committee member

Haware has also said the assignment is bigger than Tirupati or Shirdi, and that once public trust is broken it takes years to rebuild. He argued that money sitting in accounts is not enough and has to be invested and used. That is the brief in one breath: a devotee who can read a balance sheet, hired because the last cash chain did not hold.

The English title already jars some people who hear a company office in a place they treat as a shrine. The deeper fight is older: whether a temple that now behaves like a large public enterprise should be run like one, and whether a CEO who reports to an RSS-linked general secretary can be more than a new signature on the same files.

Two Sittings at Maniramdas Chhavani

Trustees gather on Wednesday at the residence of president Nritya Gopal Das in Maniramdas Chhavani, Ayodhya, in two blocks, from 2 pm to 3 pm and 4 pm to 6 pm. Mahant Dinendra Das said the meeting starts at 2 pm and that every member would stand behind whatever is decided. The sitting is the Trust’s third since the donation allegations, with a 12-point agenda that includes the CEO, deed changes and other vacant posts.

Giri said the report would come up in the meeting and that he expects a name, while adding that the Trust will decide whether to announce it at once. Kohli’s line was simpler: among the three people the committee selected, the Trust will decide on one.

The Trust posted video and stills of the 1 September handover, with the committee and office-bearers around the file that now sits with the trustees.

https://x.com/ShriRamTeerth/status/2094759397419602402

Whoever walks out of Chhavani with the job will take over pilgrim facilities, festival crowds and a cash chain that failed in public. The saints will keep the rituals. The general secretary will still sit above the new desk. The test is whether daily deposits stay at the higher band, and whether the next hundi key sits with someone the cameras and the bank can both see.