PURI: The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) on Saturday announced a series of measures to streamline the conduct of the annual Ratha Yatra, including installation of dedicated CCTV cameras to detect unauthorised persons on the chariots and curb the use of mobile phones by servitors during the festival.
The decisions were taken at the Chhatisha Nijoga meeting chaired by SJTA chief administrator Arabinda Padhee with members of the apex body of Srimandir servitors, senior temple officials and district administration representatives.
Briefing mediapersons after the meeting, Padhee said an additional pulling rope would be kept with each of the three chariots this year as a contingency measure, apart from the regular ropes.
He said the temple administration would deploy its own CCTV cameras to monitor the presence of unauthorised persons on the chariots during the pulling of the raths. The surveillance system will also identify anyone, including servitors, using mobile phones on the chariots.
“Servitors have been instructed not to use mobile phones while on the raths. Strict action will be taken against anyone found violating the direction,” Padhee said.
To ensure smooth conduct of the rituals and adherence to the schedule, three separate teams comprising servitors from different categories and district officials have been constituted for the three chariots. Each team will function from the day of the Ratha Yatra until Niladri Bije.
Puri SP will supervise the team assigned to Lord Balabhadra’s Taladhwaja chariot, the ADM will oversee Devi Subhadra’s Darpadalan chariot, while the district collector will head the team responsible for Lord Jagannath’s Nandighosha chariot. In another significant change, the administration has discontinued the practice of carrying the wooden sliding ladder structures (charamalas), used during the Pahandi procession of the deities, along with the chariots between the Jagannath Temple and Gundicha Temple.
Instead, two separate sets of charamala materials, each sufficient for all three chariots, have been stationed at both ends of the Grand Road, one at the Simhadwar and the other within the Gundicha Temple premises, to facilitate rituals at either end without transporting the materials with the chariots.