Jagannatha Darshan becomes Costlier at Puri
BY: SUN STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Mar 14, JAGANNATHA PURI, ORISSA — Attention pilgrims. Be prepared to now pay four times more than the amount you were paying to pay obeisances to Lord Jagannath from a very close range inside the sanctum sanctorum. The Jagannath Temple administration on Saturday announced a hike in the parimanik ticket price for the ‘special' darshan to Rs 100 from Rs 25 per person. Similarly, the price of the second type of parimanik ticket has been increased to Rs 25 from Rs 5. While this ticket doesn't allow devotees to enter the sanctum sanctorum, they can look the Deities from a close distance.

"The revised prices of the tickets would be effective from Monday," said Jagannath Temple's public relations officer, Laxmidhar Pujapanda. "The ticket prices had remained unchanged since last four years," he added.

The prices of ‘special' tickets have been hiked to help streamline the daily rituals of the temple besides controlling the flow of devotees at the shrine, according to the temple's chief administrator, Ashok Meena.

Unlike the past, the temple has also decided to restrict the timing of the ‘paid' darshan that used to be held at unscheduled hours, thereby delaying the daily rituals of the temple for hours together.

Going by the new schedule, the ‘special' darshan would be held for at least eight times everyday, each session lasting for nearly 40 minutes, sources said. "In fact, we wanted to stop the system of special (parimanik) darshan completely in the temple (without hampering the normal or free darshan), as it delayed the host of complex rituals of the Deities. But some priests opposed our plan. So we decided to control the parimanik darshan by restricting its timing. We also feel that the rush of pilgrims would wane due to the hiked ticket prices," Meena said.

"We would observe the new system for two months. If the rituals are not streamlined, we would review the whole system again," said Meena, who is also the Revenue Divisional Commissioner (central range).

Notably, pilgrims get an opportunity to have a glimpse of the Deities free of cost for nearly one hour every day in the morning. The ‘free' public darshan lasts up to five hours during festive seasons.

The temple sells nearly four hundred parimanik tickets for ‘paid' darshan on any given day. And the sale of tickets touched nearly two thousand on a peak day, sources said.

Recently, the shrine cooks were left in high dudgeon due to the inordinate delay in completion of rituals, which affected their business of selling Mahaprasad in the temple. They alleged the disturbance was being created due to the lack of proper schedule for parimanik darshan and unlimited sale of special tickets among pilgrims. The cooks had even stopped preparing the cooked food for some days, demanding proper conduct of the rituals.

According to sources, nearly twenty-three types rituals are performed at the temple on a normal day, which runs from 6 am till late night. On festival occasions, nearly thirty-two types of rituals are solemnized. This is perhaps the only shrine in the country where so many complex rituals are performed daily.