Puri: Niladri Bhakta Niwas, a shelter house for devotees near Town police station here, is yet to be made functional even though the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) had completed its construction at least six months ago.
Social activists and intellectuals have claimed that the temple administration has been losing out on a huge amount of revenue due to its failure to open the shelter house for devotees and tourists.
Thousands of devotees from across the globe visit the Holy City to have a darshan of Lord Jagannath and his siblings Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra at Srimandir. Most of them usually depend upon hotels, lodging houses and Dharmashalas (inns) for accommodation.
On occasions, devotees and tourists are forced to pay steep prices for rooms in hotels and lodging houses. The SJTA had, therefore, decided to construct a few shelter houses in the city to provide affordable accommodation to the visitors.
The temple administration had earlier set up two shelter houses-Nilachala Bhakta Niwas and Srigundicha Bhakta Niwas-to provide night halt facilities to devotees at cheap rates. It is learnt that the two facilities have been receiving a huge response from the visitors.
In the wake of the high demand for affordable accommodation, the SJTA constructed Niladri Bhakta Niwas at a cost of around Rs 12 crore. The shelter house has altogether 116 well-furnished rooms besides three dormitories, a dining and a conference hall. All the rooms are air-conditioned.
Sources said the temple administration is mulling to lease out the facility to a private party through an open tender.
“The SJTA is getting good revenue from the two shelter houses it had set up earlier. However, reports claim that the temple administration will hand over the third shelter house to a private entity for its day-to-day management. There is every possibility that the private party will fleece the guests, said a social activist.
When contacted, SJTA administrator (development) Bishwanath Sahu said they were taking steps to open Niladri Bhakta Niwas. “We will lease out the shelter house to a private party. The lease-holder will be asked not to allow consumption of non-vegetarian food and liquor at the shelter house,” he added.
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