BHUBANESWAR: Jagannath Temple at Puri owns 60,426 acre of land in Odisha and about 150 kg of gold besides many precious stones. Law Minister Pratap Jena informed this in written reply to separate questions in the Assembly on Tuesday.The Minister said the 12th-century temple at Puri also has 395.25 acre of landed properties in six other states. Maximum 322.93 acre of land is in West Bengal followed by 28.21 acre in Maharashtra, 25.11 acre in Madhya Pradesh, 17.02 acre in Andhra Pradesh, 1.70 acre in Chhattisgarh and 0.27 acre in Bihar.
Stating that land of Lord Jagannath is spread over 24 of 30 districts in the State, the Minister said out of 60,426.94 acre identified in the State, the temple administration could prepare final Record of Rights (RoR) of 34,206.73 acre. Jena said the Minister has already filed 386 encroachment cases in different tehsils of the State to free it from illegal possession of people and institutions. “Encroachment case has been made to recover 96.26 acre. These land encroachments have been detected in Cuttack, Puri, Bhadrak, Kendrapara, Khurda and Balasore districts,” he said.
Besides, the Minister said the temple administration has sold 341.30 acre of land and recovered about `10.64 crore. The amount from the land sale has been deposited in the temple corpus fund, Jena said and added that steps are being taken to dispose of more such land after their recovery.
The Minister said besides landed property Lord Jagannath too owns gold, silver ornaments which are stored in the Ratna Bhandar of the temple. “Last time, the inner chamber of the Ratna Bhandar was opened on July 14, 1985. The inventory made between May 13, 1978 and July 23, 1978 revealed that 12,838 bhari of gold ornaments along with precious stones and 18,815 bhari silver ornaments were stored in the Ratna Bhandar,” he said.Jena, however, said the State Government does not have any immediate plans to open Ratna Bhandar now. Gold, silver and other valuable items are “safe” inside the Ratna Bhandar, he added.