Puri: Nearly two years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Odisha government opened the doors of the 12th century Lord Jagannath Temple for devotees from this Sunday. The decision to open the temple on Sundays was taken keeping in view a significant decline in the number of COVID-19 cases in the state.
The shrine was opened for the public from Monday to Saturday on February 21, after remaining closed for almost 21 days due to a rise in coronavirus cases during the third wave in January. The temple used to remain closed on Sundays for sanitization of the premises.
Given the significant decline in COVID-19 cases across the nation and improvement in the pandemic situation, the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has taken the decision to allow the entry of devotees into the temple on Sundays. Now sanitization will be done during the night and not by closing the temple, an official note said. The devotees are allowed to pay obeisance to deities from the time of opening of Singhadwara’ (Lion’s gate) in the early morning till pahada’ (closure of the door) every day, including Sundays.
Though most of the restrictions on devotees have been withdrawn, visitors need to follow the Covid appropriate behaviour such as wearing masks, maintaining social distance, and hand sanitization. The decision to open the temple on Sundays has come as big relief for the devotees, especially those who work in offices. As Sunday is a holiday for them, they can now visit the temple. The SJTA has also withdrawn the restriction of producing double vaccination certificates or RT-PCR COVID negative reports for entering the shrine.
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