Gorakhpur: As the consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple is nearing, the traffic on Gita Press website to download the Ramcharitmanas has surged many folds leading to an incapability of the press to meet the demand. In view of the increased request for the holy book ahead of the January 22 event, the Gita Press is likely to allow free download of the Ramcharitmanas from its website.

According to the Gorakhpur-based publisher’s Manager Lalmani Tripathi, the Gita Press has published 95 crore books in 15 languages. “In 2022, it had printed and distributed around 75,000 copies of the Ramcharitmanas. Since the announcement of the date of the ‘Pran Pratistha’ at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the demand for the book has increased manifold,” he said.

Established in 1923, the Gita Press is one of the world's largest publishers. The publisher, which was awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize last year, has stores across the country.

Consecration ceremony of Ram Temple will take place on Jan 22

The consecration ceremony, which will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will take place on January 22. It was announced on October 26, last year. "Due to limited space, we are unable to meet the demand for printing and distribution of the Ramcharitmanas," Tripathi said.

"We do not have the preparedness to suddenly print and provide 2 lakh to 4 lakh copies of the Ramcharitmanas. Since last month, we have managed to make available 1 lakh copies of the book", he said.

Even after this, the demand is not being met, Tripathi said and added that Gita Press does not have sufficient stock.

"In many places, we have to humbly say that we do not have stock available. Recently, we received a demand for 50,000 Ramcharitmanas from Jaipur and a demand for 10,000 copies came from Bhagalpur, which we had to regretfully decline. This is the scenario across the entire country," the Gita Press manager added.

"Currently, we are uploading the Ramcharitmanas to the Gita Press website. Starting from Tuesday, it will be available for free download. We will provide this service for 15 days, allowing up to 50,000 people to download," Tripathi stated.

If the demand increases, "We will scale-up the traffic capacity, enabling up to 1 lakh people to download the Ramcharitmanas simultaneously", he said and added that this service could also be extended.

He, however, mentioned, "Considering that we publish books in 15 languages and have over 2,500 book distributors associated with us, we also need to take into account their demands as their livelihoods are dependent on it. We are exploring various options to expand our capacity so that we can meet the increasing demand for books."