Keonjhar: After a gap of three months, the doors of Maa Tarini temple in Ghatagaon town of Keonjhar district reopened for devotees Tuesday.
The move came following the district administration’s decision in favour of the temple’s reopening.
For darshan, the shrine will open in two phases. The first phase is from 7:30am to 12:30 pm and the second phase is from 4:00pm to 7:00pm. At any given time, only 50 people will be allowed inside the temple. The devotees will be to follow Covid-19 guidelines such as mask wearing and maintaining social distancing while entering the temple and inside the temple premises. The temple trust has erected barricades for smooth darshan of devotees.
The devotees can only have darshan of the deity. They can’t offer ‘bhog’ and light lamps. Similarly, rituals such as tonsuring heads of children have also been suspended temporality for safety reasons.
Those above 64 years and below ten years have been debarred from entering the temple.
After remaining out of bounds for devotees for long nine months due to the outbreak of the pandemic, the temple was reopened January 18, 2021. However, it was closed down again for devotees as Covid cases surged and the state government announced a partial lockdown across the state. All the religious places across the district also reopened from Tuesday, it was learnt.
PNN
