BARIPADA: Peeved with the absence of development works and irregular daily rituals of the deities in Haribaldev Jew temple here in Dwitiya Srikhetra, the servitors have decided to go on a padyatra to meet Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on June 20 and urge him to address the grievances.
Submitting a memorandum in this regard to the Chief Minister, Law Minister, Endowments Commissioner, finance department, Collector and SP in the district on Wednesday, servitors Arun Kumar Panda and Kameswar Tripathy said problems of the temple need to be addressed soon.
Alleging that the daily rituals of the deities are delayed by more than two hours everyday, they pointed fingers at the alleged poor management of the temple development committee. “More than 44,000 acre of lands in the name of the temple are not being taken care of leading to illegal encroachments but the Endowments Department and district administration do not deem fit to interfere. As a result, much land of the temple has been wrongly recorded in the name of private and non-government organisations,” alleged the servitors. In the memo they stated that steps must be taken to get back temple land soon.
The illegal encroachers are reaping profits from the land whereas the Endowments Department is reeling under financial crisis which is why basic needs for daily rituals of deities were not being provided by the temple development committee, the servitors stated. “Despite high level meetings with officials concerned and servitors even in the presence of the Law Minister in 2021 to regularise temple services and increasing the remuneration of the servitors, none of the demands has been fulfilled yet,” the memo further mentioned.
Baripada car festival is considered unique as only women devotees pull the chariot of Devi Subhadra.
The servitors have decided to go on a padyatra to Bhubaneswar and urge the CM to intervene in restoration of temple land, ornaments, regularisation of daily rituals of deities, appointment of a special officer for the administrative management of temple, allocation of EPF besides hiking the remuneration of servitors.