Puri: As the Odisha government gears up for the grand event during the inauguration of Shree Jagannath Temple Heritage Corridor Project around the 12th century shrine in the pilgrim town of Puri next month, a special guest list is being prepared for the three-day programme.
Apart from a host of dignitaries, VIPs, captains of corporate houses and celebrities, invitation will also be sent to different shrines across the country for the mega event to be held in the seaside town from January 15 to 17. The Rs 943 crore project is set to be dedicated to the people ahead of the consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22.
As Chief Administrator of Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) Ranjan Kumar Das puts it, steps are being taken to invite 857 temples in Odisha. This apart, 180 major temples outside the state including Vaishno Devi, Kamakhya Temple and Shirdi Sai temples will also be invited for the grand inauguration event beginning from January 15.
Similarly, four Holy Dhams as per Hindu religion and four other smaller Dhams will be invited. Invitation will also be sent to King of Nepal, who enjoys special rights in Jagannath Temple. Major Hindu temples in other countries are also being invited.
A lavish programme of international level will be organised for inauguration of the project. The public dedication ceremony will attract devotees from India and abroad. The devotees will get a cosmopolitan feel while visiting Puri after the inauguration of the project. During the event, hymns would be chanted amidst beating of drums round the clock.
The corridor around the temple involves a seven-metre green buffer zone and a 10-metre pedestrian-only inner circumambulation that will be used for clockwise parikrama of the temple.
The project would ensure that the corridor around the Jagannath temple becomes a modern-day pilgrim centre complete with all modern amenities including a queue management facility for 6,000 devotees, baggage screening facility, cloakroom for keeping belongings of nearly 4,000 families, drinking water, toilet facilities, and facilities for washing hands/feet.
There will also be information-cum-donation kiosks, shelter pavilions for shade and rest, multi-level car parking, dedicated shuttle cum emergency lane for accommodating police, fire and emergency vehicles, and an integrated command and control centre.
A Lokarpan Yagna will begin on January 15 and end on January 17. Recitation of Vedas will be conducted at the four gates of the temple. Rigveda for eastern gate, Yajurveda for southern, Samaveda for western and Atharvaveda for northern have been finalised, temple officials said.
All major buildings flanking the three-km-long Grand Road connecting the Jagannath Temple and Mausima Temple are being painted uniformly. All temples and subsidiary shrines will be decorated in colourful lights. The town will be made dust free during the period with periodic vacuum cleaning.
While all civil works of the project have been completed, the remaining landscaping work would be over soon. The devotees will be able to reach Meghanada Pacheri without any hassle once the dedicated corridor is thrown open.
Conceived in 2016, the Puri Heritage Corridor Project was unveiled in December 2019 to transform the town into an international place of heritage. The project includes redeveloping major portions of the town and in the vicinity of the temple for visitors and tourists while creating an unobstructed 75-metre corridor around the Meghanada Pacheri (the outer wall of the 12th-century shrine). A 6,000 capacity Srimandir reception centre, Jagannath cultural centre, including Raghunandan library, Badadanda heritage streetscape, Jagannath Ballav pilgrim centre, multilevel car parking are among the other amenities.
