BHUBANESWAR: The 11th century Lingaraj temple will soon get new doors at its Singhadwara. While work on the new doors has been completed, Archaeological Survey of India (Bhubaneswar circle) plans to install them within the next 10 days.
The ASI, which is the custodian of the 11th century temple, has replaced the original teak wood doors with new ones and is currently, brass plating them. The state government had decided to silver clad the temple doors but as no step had been taken so far, the ASI decided to go ahead with the brass coating. Officials said the original teak wood doors suffered heavy damage in the cyclone Fani in 2019 and subsequently, they were entirely damaged by termites.
This apart, following reports of structural damages in the Nata Mandap of the temple, the conservation agency has conducted water tightening and proofing of the roof and sealed the cracked and leaking joints.
“This is a part of the year-long conservation programme of the temple being carried out at the expenditure of `1.24 crore,” said Superintending Archaeologist, ASI, Arun Malik. According to official reports, from 2016-17 to 2018-19, the ASI spent `20.68 lakh for conservation of Lingaraj temple.
The temple gets an average 8,000 visitors per day and receives lakhs of devotees during festivals. Recently, temple servitors had alleged that a wide crack is now visible near Chandrasila close to the doorway inside garbha gruha of the temple. They had demanded that the reason behind the cracks to be examined properly by the ASI.