BHUBANESWAR: Shree Jagannath temple in Puri will soon join the league of popular ancient shrines of India that are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to manage crowds and enhance security of devotees.
The 12th century shrine spread over an area of 10.7 acre gets a daily footfall of 30,000 to 50,000. But, during days of religious significance or special occasions like New Year, this number goes up to two to five lakh.
With the temple administration and police facing the difficult task of managing teeming crowds ever since the four gates were reopened six months back, the former has decided to install a comprehensive AI-driven footfall counting and security detection system across critical zones within the shrine.
The temple administration on Thursday asked six companies shortlisted for the project to conduct proof of check of the entire system to check its functionality and accuracy in the shrine. Under this project, officials said AI-based high-resolution camera and sensors will be installed at 41 points of the entire shrine premises to count devotees accurately.
The system will include data visualisation on a centralised dashboard and a mobile application for easy access to the real-time footfall data. Temples like Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Meenakshi temple in Madurai, Mahakaleswar in Ujjain and Venkateswara Swami temple in Tirupati are using AI solutions.