STORY: It’s a religious project with very secular implications.

Workers in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya are putting the finishing touches to a grand new Hindu temple.

The first stage of Ram Mandir is due to open next month.

And it has sparked a $6 billion infrastructure boom in the surrounding area as officials and businesses anticipate a surge in visitors.

The city expects 4.5 million tourists a month – or about 50% more than its entire population.

New roads, bridges and an airport are in the offing – all strongly backed by the country’s ruling party, the Hindu nationalist BJP of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

But the temple’s origins and effects don’t sit well with everyone.

Ayodhya made headlines back in 1992 when a Hindu mob razed the the mosque that stood on what is now the temple’s grounds.

After decades of legal wrangling, the country’s Supreme Court awarded the site to Hindus, who said it was the location of an earlier temple.

Muslims were given a site for new mosque too.

But it’s fifteen miles from the downtown building boom, and there’s little sign of construction work going on.

Azam Qadri is president of a Sunni board in the city.

He says the entire Muslim community has been excluded from the economic boom sparked by the temple.

Many businesses are happy to cash in, however, with hotels springing up to cater to pilgrims and sightseers.

U.S. chain Radisson is among those putting up new properties, as is India’s Tata Group.

Some local firms aren’t so impressed though, saying they got little compensation when their properties were demolished.

Grocer Arvind Kumar Gupta has already seen his home partly torn down.

Now he faces seeing his store demolished to make way for a wider road:

“I don’t know what to say about this. Right now, I am just worried about packing the items in the shop and I am wondering where I can store these things safely.”

A local business owners’ association says roughly 4,000 shops have been fully or partly knocked down as part of the project, with compensation scant.

Landowners are probably happy though, with the value of sites in the city soaring.

Real estate agents estimate that the cost of land has roughly quadrupled in recent years.

But as the city’s new temple gets set to open, not everyone is feeling quite so blessed by its arrival.