Dining facility for 3000 devotees in Jagannath temple

Puri, Oct 10 (UNI) The mahaprasad market in Jagannath temple complex popularly known as ''Ananda bazaar'' will be renovated to provide dining facility for three almost thousand devotees.

Disclosing this the newspersons, Jagannath temple Chief Administrator Suresh Chandra Mahapatra said NALCO has agreed to provide funds for the purpose.

A technical committee comprising one senior engineer of Nalco, two technocrats from IIT, the superintendent of archaeological survey of India (ASI) and two retired chief engineers of the state has been formed to execute the renovation work, he said.

Mr Mohapatra said the ''tulsi'' and flower garden of the temple, known as Neelachal upaban and the Koilibaikuntha respectively would be developed to meet the daily requirement of the deities.

The temple management, he said has decided to provide age old pension of Rs 300 per month to the servitors who became incapacitated due to illness, old age or physically handicapped by birth.

He said so far 75 such servitors have been identified. This apart the land less servitors would be provided with land for their house free of cost. The Temple has also decided to send 120 servitors to various religious places of the country in two groups to gather first hand experience about modern management of religious shrines and the pilgrims as part of servitor education programme.

Mr Mohapatra said the temple would earn over Rs 20 crores from sale of its landed property located in Tamando, Luxmisagar, Chandaka, Dhauli and in Cuttack.

He said the temple had taken possession of a valuable patch of land in Bhubaneswar lying vacant for a long time. Similarly, nearly 20 acres of land in Cuttack had been identified to be auctioned.

The chief administrator assured the servitors that section 21 of the new amended temple act would never be misused and said actions taken against the erring servitors for gross violation of law, on the basis of the consensus of the all thirty six departments of the servitor community known as chhatisa Nijog engaged in the service of the lords.

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