Insurance Cover & Aid For Servitors Of Puri Jagannath Temple Hiked

Puri: The medical health insurance coverage for servitors of Jagannath Temple in Odisha’s pilgrim town of Puri has been hiked to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 2 lakh.

The Shree Jagannath Temple Managing Committee has also increased the financial aid provided to servitors for the marriage of a daughter from Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000. Similarly, the financial assistance for conducting ‘Brata Ghara’ and ‘Sudhi Kriya’ has also been hiked from Rs 10,000 to Rs 30,000 and Rs 20,000 respectively.

This apart, Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has decided to provide reimbursement cost of medicine (RCM) facility to the regular staff of the temple under which they can get medical bills up to Rs 12,000 reimbursed. It would replace the medical allowance (0.65 per cent) that was previously provided to the staff. “The medical allowance was nominal and not many could avail it. Hence, we decided to replace it with HCM for their benefit,” chief administrator Ranjan Das said.

The meeting on Saturday also gave an NOC to Odisha Bridge & Construction Corporation Limited to construct a parallel road from Jagannath Ballav Pilgrim Centre, which is located 00 metres away from the main shrine, site to Dola Bedi to reduce the devotees crowd on Bada Danda (Grand Road). The road can serve as a green corridor for the devotees to reach the temple.

While encroachments at Matitota and Harichandi Sahi will be removed for setting up of Srimandir Adarsha Gurukul and Sevayat housing projects respectively, the Endowments department has been assigned the task to develop Bauli Matha.

The SJTA further said that temporary toilets will be set up on the stretch between Marchikot and Singhadwar for the convenience of devotees, visiting the town for Panchuka darshan during the ongoing Kartika month.