BHUBANESWAR: Amid growing demands to make the Shree Jagannath temple in Puri accessible to devotees with disabilities, the Centre has decided to carry out an accessibility audit of the 12th-century shrine this month.
The Department of Persons with Disabilities under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment will carry out accessibility audits of 14 popular shrines across the country including the Srimandir taken up for development under the Ministry of Tourism’s PRASAD scheme.
Accordingly, the Tourism Ministry has recently sought help from the state government in facilitating the audit which will ensure all essential features related to universal accessibility are incorporated in the temple for easy and smooth movement of devotees with disabilities within the precincts. Bhubaneswar-based NGO Swabhimaan headed by its founder Shruti Mohapatra has been selected by the ministry for carrying out the accessibility audit.
“We will check the existing accessibility features of the temple (particularly sanctum sanctorum) and subsidiary shrines and what more is required to make the complex entirely accessible to devotees with mobility, cognitive and visual disabilities,” said Mohapatra. Services in the temple like help desks and Ananda Bazaar counters will also be audited and the final report submitted to the ministry by the end of this month.
Despite several demands, the temple has remained out of bounds for differently-abled persons, particularly the visually-impaired and physically-challenged devotees. The matter is currently being heard in the Orissa High Court. Temple administrator Ranjan Kumar Das said the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has prepared a preliminary plan to facilitate the entry of devotees with disabilities into the shrine.
The modalities are being worked out, he added. Currently, differently-abled devotees are allowed to use wheelchairs only up to the Lion’s Gate but it is prohibited beyond that. From there, these devotees are further carried inside either by the volunteers or their relatives. The last time, wheelchair-bound devotees entered the temple was in 2015 when the SJTA laid a ramp at the North gate of the shrine.