BHUBANESWAR: Wooden wheels and decorative panels of the three majestic chariots of the Trinity - Nandighosa, Debadalana and Taladhwaja - that were constructed for this year’s Rath Yatra are now up for sale.
While this has been the practice since 2012, this year, the Shri Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has claimed to have made the process transparent. Cost of the Nandighosa chariot’s wheels, too, has been doubled owing to the increasing demand from devotees, organisations and industrial houses, among others.
SJTA floated an expression of interest and prepared a standard operating procedure (SOP) for allotment of the wheels, ‘prabha’, ‘kona guja’ and ‘asuari’ of the three chariots. As per the SOP, people interested in purchasing parts of the chariots will have to submit an application for every chariot component with the requisite fees of Rs 1,000 by September 15.
The temple administration has fixed the upset (base) price of Taladhawaja at Rs 60,000 per wheel, while it is Rs 50,000 per wheel of Debadalana and Rs 1 lakh per wheel of Nandighosha. Similarly, the upset price of each ‘prabha’, ‘guja’ and ‘asuari’ of every chariot is Rs 25,000 and Rs 10,000 each respectively. Besides, a devotee or an organisation can purchase one wheel each of all the three chariots at Rs 2 lakh. Last year, the price of each wheel of Lord Jagannath’s chariot was Rs 50,000.
Temple chief administrator Arabinda Padhee, who had initiated the practice of selling the chariots’ components in 2012, said this time the process has been made transparent. “After September 15 when the bids are opened, the sale will be strictly as per first come first serve basis and only those who offer the highest price above the upset price will be chosen. There will be no push sale this time unlike previous year. The entire process will be transparent for the public,” he said.
Sale process of Trinity’s chariot parts made transparent by SJTA
The priority, Padhee added, will be given to people or organisations who are willing to buy one wheel each of the three chariots. Instead of push sale, wheels or other parts of chariots remaining unallotted, will be allotted at a rate that would be decided by the SJTA.
While the bidders have already started offering prices for chariots, one of the bidders is Indian Railways which plans to install three wheels each of three chariots in the newly developed Puri railway station.
Padhee added that the SJTA will collect an undertaking that buyers will worship the parts of the chariots and upkeep them with sanctity and not re-sell, transfer or misuse them. The link to the chariot components that can be purchased has been integrated to the SJTA website.