Baripada: Servitors of Baripada Jagannath temple in Mayurbhanj district have decided to resign en masse from their posts December 1 as the authorities have ignored their pleas.
The priests in the holy service are unhappy over alleged irregularities in the temple management under the Endowment Department. They rued that their demands have not been conceded by the state government.
“If the state government fails to address their problems and resolve them by November-end, we will cease work,” they warned.
Enlisting their demands, servitors Arun Mishra, Kameswar Tripathy, Sashibhusan Das and Somnath Panda submitted a memorandum addressed to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik through Baripada sub-collector Dibyajyoti Parida Tuesday.
The servitors said they have been agitating for the past 10 years in the larger interests of the temple. They recalled the visit of Chief Minister to the temple in April as part of his electioneering. The Chief Minister had a darshan of the deities. The servitors had drawn his attention to their demands. The servitors said Baripada Jagannath temple has its own importance as the Rathyatra here begins a day after it starts at Puri Grand Road.
Another peculiar tradition of this temple is that only women are entitled to pull the chariot of Devi Subhadra. People have been calling it Dwitiya Srikhetra (second Puri), but the government has not recognised it, they lamented.
The servitors’ demands included the appointment of an officer (magistrate rank) for the Endowment Department, appointment of servitors in mutts and temples, measures to streamline the rituals, reclaim of landed properties of mutts and temples and daily allowance of Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 to servitors.
The servitors had earlier launched a padayatra to Bhubaneswar over non-fulfilment of their demands, but the administration dissuaded them from protests midway with assurances. Later, the Chief Minister had held a meeting with them at Bhubaneswar to sort out the issues. He had assured to sort out the issues, but to no avail, the servitors lamented.
“As none of our demands was addressed as yet, we have decided to resign en masse from work December 1,” they said.
