After a gap of two days citing “technical” problems, the Cuttack district administration is all set to resume its illegal temple demolition drive from Thursday.
The drive, which began on May 1 to demolish over 200 temples in the city, has been badly hit, and by now only four such illegal structures have been razed.
While some unlucky temple authorities who have come under the scanner of the administration have decided not to raise a protest when their places of worship would be demolished, a political party on Wednesday urged the authorities to go ahead with the drive to remove encroachments on Government lands.
“We will not protest or restrain the authorities from demolishing our temple as we do not want to disrespect or dishonor the orders of the High Court,” said a priest of a temple located at Markat Nagar. The HC on Tuesday had rejected a batch of review petitions, thereby giving a clear indication that all the unauthorised religious places would be removed.
However, some youths of the Utkal Bharat on Wednesday met the city DCP urging him to restart the demolition drive immediately. The DCP reportedly assured that the drive would resume from Thursday and continue without break.
Meanwhile, official sources claimed that the Cuttack Municipal Corporation which is entrusted with the responsibility of providing logistics to demolish the unauthorised structures has procured adequate bulldozers to pull down the temples.
But the civic body has already felt the financial pinch by bearing the cost of the demolition and has brought this to the notice of the Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC), who is supervising the demolition act.