Air India says sorry for Puri temple article

Air India (AI) on Saturday apologised for a false and fictitious remark in its in-flight magazine ‘Shubh Yatra’ about cooking of ‘non-vegetarian dishes’ at Sri Jagannath Temple in Odisha’s pilgrim town Puri.

In a Twitter message, the airlines firm apologised for the error and removed the magazine copies from its flights with immediate effect. “AI apologises for the error. Our intention was not to hurt sentiments. ShubhYatra magazine copies have been removed with immediate effect,” AI tweeted.

The leading air career’s tweet followed soon after members of Jagannath Sena staged demonstration in front of Sri Mandir in Puri, demanding resignation of Union civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Odisha tourism and culture minister Ashok Chandra Panda. They also demanded a strong action against the officials of Air India.

“This is an unfortunate incident. We will take up the matter with the appropriate authorities,” said Odisha chief minister (CM) Naveen Patnaik.

It has been mentioned in an article entitled ‘Devotion can be delicious’ in Air India’s in-flight magazine Shubh Yatra that 285 varieties of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes are cooked everyday in Sri Jagannath Temple.

The controversial excerpt of the article reads: “Said to be the largest in the country, the Jagannath Temple’s kitchen in Puri since its inception has had an army of 500 cooks and 300 helpers to serve 1,00,000 people every day, round the clock — which means almost 285 varieties of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes every day.”

The incident came to fore after a passenger namely Rudraprasanna Rath noticed the error in the article. Mr Rath reportedly asked for feedback form from the flight staff but he was not provided with the form.