A whopping Rs 290 crore budget, unprecedented so far, for the fiscal year 2017-18 was passed at the Shree Jagannath Temple managing body meeting on Saturday after five-hour-long deliberations over various aspects of the budget.
Chairman of the temple body Gajpati king Dibyasingh Dev presided over the meeting while all the officials and servitor members connected with the temple administration participated.
The budget emphasises on creating more infrastructure and other basic facility for the ever increasing devotees visiting Puri, while it envisages a number of welfare measures for the servitor community.
The temple expects a corpus fund of Rs 118 crore and Rs 100 crore from sale of temple land and property located across the State respectively. This apart, it expects to get Rs 12 crore from the auction of stone mounds and Rs 30.40 crore interest accrued on the corpus fund deposit. Collection from the Hundi is expected to be over Rs 8.8 crore, while it would get Rs 93, 19, 60,000 grant from the State Government. This apart, income from other sources like Rs 3,97,50,000 from auctions, Rs 2.97 crore from two Bhaktaniwas (accommodations for devotees) and Rs 24. 40 crore from other sources are expected. Rs 34.80 crore revenue is expected from the Yatri Niwas.
On the expenditure front, Rs 20.66 crore has been earmarked for construction of Bhaktaniwas, while Rs 7 crore has been allocated for creating a Sevak Awas Yojna (servitor house complex). An Adarsh Gurukul (education complex for wards of servitors) would be established at an estimated cost of Rs 5 crore. Rs 8.36 crore would be spent for renovation of the Jagannath Ballav, the temple garden.
Rs 10, 61 crore would be spent towards the salary of the employees, Rs 5 crore to meet the salary, pension and gratuity of temporary employees, Rs 3.5 crore to be deposited in the employees’ pension fund, Rs 3.54 crore for conduct of this year’s Rath Yatra, Rs 2 crore for observance of daily nitees, Rs 4.90 crore for servitors while Rs 1 crore would be deposited for insurance of the servitors.
These apart, Rs 2 crore would be spent for construction of Rambhavan at the western gate of the temple, Rs 1crore for erecting a temporary shed at the Anand Bazaar, Rs 15 lakh for repair of the Jagamohan, Rs 30 lakh for training and education of the servitors, Rs 22 lakh for medical expenses of the servitors, Rs 1.22 crore for old age disable pension for servitors, while towards wages, Rs 1. 65 crore would be spent.