Pilgrims and tourists from Jharkhand visiting to the pious city of Puri in Odisha will no longer have to wander for a stay in the city.
During a recent interaction of Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das with his Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik, the Odisha Government has, in principle, accepted to give a piece of land, though as tiny as half acre, to Jharkhand for building a Dharmshala there. The proposed Dharmshala will shelter pilgrims and tourists from Jharkhand.
“Apart from Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh has also managed to get a similar size of land for the same purpose, whereas the requests from West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand, including a number of other states rest pending as of now,” confirmed a Joint Secretary level officer in Odisha Government.
“The in-principle acceptance letter was sent to Jharkhand Government around June 15-20. Now an official visit from them at the proposed site is expected.
The moment this takes place and we get a final official request from them, the land would be transferred to them,” said Joint Secretary (Revenue) of Odisha Government Abhay Nayak, who is also looking after this entire proceedings.
Whether the land would be given free of cost or will it bear some cost, Nayak said that it depended on conversation and understanding between CMs of both the states and whether what kind of arrangements they were looking in between. Whether it might cost a token money, or be made available free of cost remained the sole discretion of the CMs involved. Yet again, Nayak added that the way the building would be developed was a decision to be taken by Jharkhand, and Odisha was nowhere in it.
“The proposed land to be handed over to Jharkhand government is situated at Balukhand area within Puri Township, which is some 2-3 Km away from the holy temple. Though demand from neighbouring State (Jharkhand) was of a bigger piece of land, but we couldn’t afford to offer more than half an acre of land keeping the similar demands from several states and availability of land in mind,” said Nayak.
land availability in the city of Puri has been becoming scarce day by day. “In fact, Puri today is not Puri of a decade ago. It is turning into Chankyapuri of Delhi. Chanakyapuri is a home of embassies of most of the countries. Just like that, we have applications and requests of a number of states for their exclusive Dharmshala or Bhawan in Puri. So, we are not in a position to give as much land to states as they ask for,” said Nayak.
The idea of requirement of a Jharkhand Dharmshala in Puri was floated some 12 years ago during an interaction of the then Jharkhand Chief Minister Arjun Munda with Patnaik on July 12, 2004. Patnaik, who has been serving as CM of Odisha since March 2000, had assured all assistance to the Jharkhand government in this regard. Munda had asked Patnaik to provide a piece of about 10 acres land at Puri for the proposed Dharmshala.
Puri has been among favourite destinations of the people of Jharkhand not only for the Jagannath Temple but also for the sea beach. Tourists just pour down to Puri during the Durga Puja festival.