A heritage corridor around the Jagannath Temple, once a dream, unattainable project, is now a glaring reality that turns Puri as the face of Odisha as the longest-serving Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had desired immensely quite early when he took charge of the State as boss. Naveen, a staunch follower of the truly humanity-based Jagannath culture, had somehow developed a great liking for the temple town on sea. Highly-cultured himself because of an insatiable intellectual pursuit all his life, Naveen found Puri the fittest location to be projected as the face of Odisha. Coincidentally, he found to great joy his discreetly-chosen private secretary VK Pandian an extremely loyal Jagannath devotee who too was enormously keen to do something really noteworthy for the suffering pilgrims as well as millions of tourists in distress due to horrifically-disorganised ways of handling the temple affairs by the shrine's management outfit.
The relatively young VK obviously vowed to set things in order and got down on business soon by planning methodically ways and means so as to bring joy to all visitors by first making the surrounding free of beggars, stray cattle and dogs apart from tiny mobile shops crowding out there for at least a century. VK also ensured that he had the best support team who would fight tooth and nail with statutory authorities to go deep into the fantastic plan to only realise that the grand project would not hurt anyone or anything or violate any norm. Most of the age-old mutts surrounding the huge temple were too dilapidated to be pulled down to protect life and property. So, clearing the structures would make space for wide pathways as well as create scope to rebuild the religious institutions.
VK is an avowed devotee of the Lord and he had gained courage and conviction the moment he realised Naveen nurtures similar sentiments. He got down to complete the most ambitious project for the temple. Meanwhile, ISKCON founder Prabhupada had already popularised the cult of Jagannath all over the globe across countless diverse communities, many of them hitherto hardcore Muslims and Christians.
VK came to serve Naveen around 2012. Apart from persuading the strong-headed chief to take a number of tough decisions only with a view to making life of the masses comfortable, he also convinced the latter to come up with a face of the State. The boss said ‘yes' and he proposed the name of the temple town Puri which also has remained hugely popular as a world tourist destination. The boss nodded head to this proposal too with great pride and joy. Without losing one minute, VK set out on the herculean task. He had a sense of total surrender to Lord Jagannath. What followed is already known history. He had by now become Naveen’s most trusted lieutenant for his incredible integrity, energy and diligence. They planned the nearly 10-billion-rupee Puri heritage corridor project along with connecting roads, pathways, high-tech car parking areas, beautification, shelter and guesthouses, particularly for pilgrims, and infotainment centres all around the circumambulation zone called the heritage corridor which is kind of a paradise for Jagannatha-loving non-Hindus and tourists. Now, people from every faith can get around the temple enjoying the marvel of exquisite Odishan art and mind-blowing architecture.
Numerous difficulties came up mainly by way of private resistance even through PILs, non-approval and endorsement from statutory authorities including the Archaeological Survey of India and the National Monuments Authority who sided with illogical demands by people and experts to scrap the project citing that age-old heritage structures were being pulled down in the name of beautification. The detractors did not want to consider the plain logic of the actual demand of the times. Besides, the congestion-causing structures were all dilapidated ruins of mutts and monasteries, the principal custodians of which were in perpetual trouble of being bullied by unethically greedy traders who had occupied space by force and intimidation. So, the temple-linked religious outfits actually stood to benefit beyond expectation as compensation given was huge and their core worship places are now being rebuilt robustly.
The ambitious project is now complete. It includes a 75-meter corridor around the temple boundary, a green buffer zone, pedestrian-only circumambulation or the actual ‘Parikrama Marg', a reception centre for 6,000 devotees, a cultural centre, an ultramodern library with digital texts accessible at the touch of a button, the Jagannath Ballav pilgrim centre and a gigantic multi-level car parking from where pilgrims and visitors can easily avail free battery car service to reach the temple without feeling tired.
The Odisha Government has invested Rs 200 crore in constructing a 2.3 km-long 4-lane trumpet bridge called ‘Shree Setu' to provide direct access to tourists, aiming to avoid traffic congestion inside the crowded Puri downtown.
Additionally, a 630-meter-long road called ‘Shree Danda’ costing nearly a billion rupees is now in place to connect the multi-level car parking inside the Jagannath Ballav pilgrim centre to the sacred Dolabedi bypassing the Grand Road, popularly called the ‘Bada Danda’.
The project is complete on time as if by divine miracle. The Puri town area is an incredibly transformed location. Folks of all casts, creeds and colours from all over the country congregated in Puri to witness the opening of the heritage corridor which many had imagined would not eventually get stalled or shall see light of day in decades and in a halfway-through condition. But Naveen and VK have made the dream come true and in good time as promised. Puri is now the true face of Odisha. Incidentally, the coastline of the temple town has been beautified already during the panicky times of Covid in 2021 against many odds. Puri has the rarest of rare Blue Flag beaches along the coast that can pale many famous ones across the developed West. The Puri Lok Sabha member had declared that the Puri heritage corridor would be as beautiful as the Vatican City surrounding. But the Puri temple corridor is way better as everyone can get to see.
For the grand opening of the heritage corridor, religious heads of 1,000 temples in India and Nepal, along with the four Shankaracharyas, were invited. Puri is now the focus of attention of the entire Hindu community across the globe. All credit goes to Naveen and his incredibly diligent aide VK Pandian.
Swain also requested the Collector to make all efforts to ensure necessary compensation and other dues for his family members.