Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday offered prayers at the Shiva temple in Kedarnath and unveiled a 12-foot statue of Adi Guru Shankaracharya at the seer's reconstructed samadhi.

The prime minister also inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of reconstruction projects worth over Rs 400 crore at the Himalayan temple.

This decade belongs to Uttarakhand, there will be unprecedented boost to connectivity in the region in the coming years and migration of people from the hills will stop, he said after unveiling the statue.

Work on the Shankaracharya statue, weighing around 35 tonnes, had begun in 2019.

"No words can describe the experience of sitting before Adi Guru Shankaracharya's statue at his rebuilt samadhi," Modi said.

He also credited Baba Kedar for the reconstruction work carried out in Kedarpuri in sub-zero temperatures after the devastating floods of 2013.

Modi arrived at the Dehradun airport in the morning and was received by Uttarakhand Governor Lt Gen Gurmit Singh (retd), Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and his cabinet colleagues Subodh Uniyal and Ganesh Joshi, besides Uttarakhand Assembly Speaker Premchand Aggarwal.

Kedarpuri reconstruction is considered the prime minister's dream project whose progress is reviewed personally by him at regular intervals.