‘Puri temple’s donation to be available on Web’

Bhubaneswar: Supreme Court-appointed amicus curiae Gopal Subramanium on Sunday said that all the details of the accounts of Puri Srimandir, the abode of Lord Jagannath, will be made available on the temple administration’s website shortly.

“For me the most important are devotees and secondly transparency in accounting. There is a chartered accountant from Bhubaneswar on the committee, who told me that the protocols are being duly followed. All the accounts of Shri Jagannath will be uploaded on website shortly,” Mr Subramanium said.

Focusing on hassle-free darshan of devotees, the amicus curiae said that behaviour towards devotees should be good and added that all the required arrangements will be done at the Puri Srimandir as part of the reforms measures. Already, such issues have been discussed with Puri Gajapati Maharaj Dibya Singha Deb, servitors as well as temple administration.

To a query on hereditary system of appointment of servitors at Srimandir, Subramanium said, “This is slightly a complex question. One can’t give you a straight answer because here it is in the context of the Nitis (temple rituals). One has to understand the structure of services in the temple, but the word ‘hereditary’ is not a word of entitlement. My concept of hereditary, which is also written in the Record of Rights, is that if we use the word ‘rights’ in a very different meaning as record of services the whole attitude changes.”

On security of women devotees and installation of CCTVs, Mr Subramanium said,” It is inconceivable to think of a lady being inappropriately treated before the deities. There is agreement now that there has to be complete self-regulation in this matter.

“The CCTVs are also installed in the temple and I have asked the Superintendent of police to go through whatever is seen in the recordings so that we have some data to see how things have happened ever since their installation.”