With an aim to clean the premises of the 400-year-old Baladevjew temple and ensure more hygienic and pious environment around its premises, some retired bankers on Wednesday undertook a cleaning drive in the temple.
After coming across the heaps of banana leaf and piles of other garbage and leftovers, which chocked the water passages in the temple premises creating an unhygienic condition, they decided to clean it to provide a better environment to the devotees.
“We recently organised a meeting and later, decided to clean the temple premises of the Baladevjew at Ichhapur, which has got a pride place in the district tourism map. We contacted the Baladevjew Endowment Trust Board and sought its permission to clean the temple premises. Finally on Wednesday, we cleaned the temple,” said retired bank employee Bhimasen Das.
On Wednesday morning, about a dozen of retired bank employees of the locality congregated with spades, broomsticks, baskets and undertook the cleaning work. It took at least three hours to clean the garbage.
“We got immense pleasure by cleaning the abode of lord Baladevjew. It is the duty of every devotee to ensure the temple premises remains clean and hygienic,” said the retired bank employees. Temple Endowment Board Executive Officer Balabhadra Patri, however, said that due to shortage of staff, several times garbage remains piled up in the temple premises as regular cleaning is not done. He appreciated the work of the retired bank employees to clean the temple.