Bhubaneswar: Lingaraj Temple likely to reopen from August 23

BHUBANESWAR: The Lingaraj Temple and other religious institutions in the city are likely to reopen from August 23. The representatives of the institution expressed unanimity on the date on Saturday at a meeting with officials of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC).
Since May 5, the institutions have remained out of bounds for devotees after the second wave hit the state forcing the government to impose lockdown again. On Saturday, apart from the priests’ bodies of Lingaraj, representatives of mosques, churches, gurudwaras and the Jain Samaj held discussions with BMC commissioner Sanjay Kumar Singh and other officials of the civic body. “The meeting was meant to solicit opinion of representatives of religious institutions. It was an open discussion. All were unanimous about the reopening of the institutions on August 23,” Singh told TOI.
The meeting was held in the backdrop of government giving the nod for reopening of religious institutions in its August order. The BMC may come up with Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to be followed by the places of worship. Lingaraj Temple executive officer Prasanna Dash said in the subsequent stage, the temple trust board will be involved in taking the final decision on the reopening of the shrine.
After the first wave, Lingaraj Temple reopened for the first time for people of Bhubaneswar in January this year. People were asked to produce resident proofs such as Aadhaar card or voter ID of Bhubaneswar. They also underwent Covid testing. From January 6, however, the BMC allowed all devotees to visit the temple. After four months, it had to be shut.
During Shivratri in March, the Khurda district administration on Wednesday allowed the devotees to light holy lamp, but not more than 500 devotees were allowed into the shrine. Outside the shrine, however, there was no capping on the presence of number of devotees.