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BHUBANESHWAR: The thriller over Lord Jagannath’s ‘Ratna Bhandar’ has deepened because the Odisha authorities has “no plan” to reopen the inside chamber of the treasury of the Twelfth-century shrine in Puri and refused to share details about the temple’s asset to an RTI activist, devotees claimed on Monday.
Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) below the state regulation division, didn’t reply to the queries of Bolangir-based RTI activist Hemant Panda.
The State Data Fee has not too long ago imposed a positive on the SJTA’s officer S Ok Chatterjee for not sharing info within the public curiosity.
Asserting that the SJTA can’t determine to open the inside chamber of the ‘Ratna Bhandar’, temple administrator (growth) Ajay Kumar Jena stated the difficulty shall be positioned earlier than the Sri Jagannath Temple Managing Committee in its subsequent assembly.
“The SJTA will inform the managing committee’s resolution to the federal government after which solely the treasury might be opened,” he stated.
It appeared that water seeps via cracks within the wall of the shop, temple’s ‘Ratna Bhandar’ in-charge and servitor Niranjan Mekap stated, including that the treasury “have to be opened instantly and repaired”.
Chief of Opposition within the state meeting Jaynarayan Mishra alleged that the state authorities has “by no means made any try to open the inside chamber of the treasury regardless that it has gold, diamond jewelry, treasured stones and different ornaments.
It remained closed for 44 years even because the Sri Jagannath Temple Act, 1955 has a provision of endeavor inspection of the ‘Ratna Bhandar’ each three years, the BJP chief stated. The ruling BJD leaders stay tight-lipped over the difficulty.
Regulation Minister Jagannath Saraka had informed the Meeting on July 16 that if any proposal is obtained to open the ‘Ratna Bhandar’, the state authorities will take mandatory steps after analyzing totally different points.
Congress and BJP legislators within the Home had demanded an “rapid stock of things saved within the treasury.”
Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb, the titular king of Puri, who can also be the chairman of the Temple Managing Committee, has sought to open the treasury to clear doubts of devotees over the presence of property.
The Archaeological Survey of India, which takes care of the upkeep of Odisha’s hottest spiritual website, had not too long ago urged the state authorities to open the ‘Ratna Bhandar’ for the bodily inspection of the construction.
“The Ratna Bhandar is situated within the basement of the temple, which ought to be inspected bodily. The partitions of the treasury could also be broken as a result of local weather affect on the construction. It have to be repaired instantly,” a senior ASI official stated.
The temple has no less than two chambers of its treasury. The ‘Bahar Bhandar’ (outer chamber) shops ornaments utilized by the deities every day, whereas many items of jewelry are stored within the inside chamber of the treasury, in line with temple sources.
An try was made to open the inside chamber of ‘Ratna Bhandar’ in April 2018 following a directive of the Orissa Excessive Courtroom, nevertheless it was not profitable as keys weren’t discovered at the moment.
A group, comprising ASI officers, monks and others, then carried out an inspection from outdoors.
Within the wake of a statewide hue and cry, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had constituted a judicial fee headed by retired Justice Raghubir Das to probe into the lacking key difficulty.
“Although the fee has submitted its report back to the state authorities, we’re unable to grasp why the findings of the panel weren’t tabled within the meeting thus far,” senior Congress legislator Santosh Singh Saluja stated.
The fee had in November 2018 submitted its 324-page report back to the Odisha authorities. The opposition MLA stated the “lacking of the ‘Ratna Bhandar’ keys, and never revealing the judicial panel report by the federal government turns into a mystique”.
Former temple administrator Rabindra Narayan Mishra, who was a part of the group that inspected the inside chamber of the treasury in 1978, stated, “The Ratna Bhandar is split into two components. Whereas the outer chamber shops the ornaments and valuables for normal use of the deities, most treasured jewelry objects are stored within the inside chamber. I had seen enormous portions of gold, diamond and ornaments wrapped in garments and stored in wood containers.”
Earlier, the ‘Ratna Bhandar’ was opened in 1803 and 1926, Mishra stated.
All the dear objects have been listed and weighed correctly over the last inspection, he stated, including that the valuation of the asset couldn’t be ascertained as goldsmiths from Tamil Nadu and Gujarat weren’t capable of calculate the precise worth of the ornaments at the moment.
“I believe it’s excessive time to do a list of the ornaments saved within the Ratna Bhandar and permit the ASI to examine the bodily construction of the temple,” he stated.
In 2021, then regulation minister Pratap Jena knowledgeable the Home that in line with 1978 stock, the ‘Ratna Bhandar’ had 12,831 ‘bhari’ of gold and 22,153 ‘bhari’ of silver (one bhari is the same as 11.66 grams).
The treasury additionally had 12,831 gram of gold ornaments with treasured stones and different valuables in retailer, he had stated.
As a lot as 22,153 gram of silver with costly stones, silver utensils and different valuables have been discovered there, Jena talked about, including that as a result of numerous causes, 14 gold and silver objects couldn’t be weighed throughout the stock course of.
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