Odisha: Puri temple administration to urge devotees to donate gold

BHUBANESWAR: The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) will soon appeal to devotees to donate as much gold as possible to the 12th century shrine so that it can get new ornaments made for the deities.
“We discussed the matter in a meeting of the newly formed managing committee on Thursday. The devotees will be encouraged to donate gold. We are also exploring the possibility of accepting gold bonds from them. Instead of donating gold physically to the temple, they may make bonds in the name of the Jagannath Temple administration,” a member of the temple managing committee told TOI.

The old ornaments, which were used to adorn the deities during the Suna Besha (golden attire) ritual of the Rath Yarra festival, have lost their sheen and need urgent repair. Their poor condition came to light during the Suna Besha on July 21 when a broken golden crown was spotted atop Lord Jagannath’s head. The Jagannath Temple had around 128kg gold and 221kg silver, according to an inventory done from May 13,1978 to July 23 that year. While the devotees have occasionally been donating gold and silver to the temple, their exact quantity in the shrine’s Ratna Bhandar (treasury) is not known.
On February 16 this year, a devotee had donated nearly 4.9kg gold ornaments worth more than Rs 2.3 crore to the temple on the occasion of Saraswati puja. This was perhaps the biggest one-time gold donation in the last two decades. The shrine administration said its ambitious donation plan to shore up the revenue has been delayed owing to the Covid pandemic. It recently set a target of raising its corpus fund from the current Rs 650 crore to Rs 1,000 crore by the 2023 Rath Yatra (June or July). It further said efforts are being made to create more sources of income for the temple amid the dwindling revenue owing to the pandemic.
“We are working on a big plan to encourage the devotees to donate to the temple. Donation boxes would be installed at the airport, railway station, educational institutions and companies,” a temple official said.
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