Puri: Devotees will now have to pay for getting a glimpse of the holy Trinity inside Puri Srimandir. A decision to introduce 'ticket system' to facilitate devotees to have a darshan of the deities from close quarters near 'Bhitara Katha' was formally taken during a meeting by the temple managing committee today.
As per the decision taken at the meeting chaired by Gajapati Maharaja Dibyasingha Deb, nearly 60% tickets will be sold online while 35% tickets can be bought from the counter and the rest 5% will remain reserved with the Chief Administrator of Srimandir.
All the gold donated by devotees to the deities will be kept in the banks under the gold monetisation scheme, informed Shree Jagannath Temple Administration(SJTA) Chief Administrator Pradipta Mohapatra after the meeting.
"A formal decision was taken to start ticketed darshan for devotees near Bhitara Katha. Apart from this, it has been decided to keep all donations in banks under gold monetisation scheme so that an interest of 2.5% can be generated," Mohapatra said.
The Chief Administrator further informed that a special committee has been formed to take decision on the arrangements to be made for the implementation of the ticket system.
The committee members include SJTA chief, Puri collector, Central Range IG, Puri SP and some members of the Srimandir managing committee. Official sources said a final decision regarding fixation of ticket rates will be taken in the next meeting of the newly formed committee.