Days after the central government withdrew the draft heritage statutes issued by the National Monuments Authority (NMA) for the Shree Jagannath Temple in Puri, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday demanded the statutes be withdrawn. of the temples in the Ekamra Kshetra area in Bhubaneswar.
In a statement, Patnaik appealed to the Odisha MPs to take up the matter with the Union government. “The central government should immediately withdraw the draft statutes of the National Monuments Authority on Ananta Basudev and the Brahmeshwar temple of Ekamra Kshetra,” he said. “It would have been appropriate for central agencies to entrust the state on sensitive religious issues.”
On Monday, the Union Minister of Culture and Tourism Prahlad Singh Patel announced the withdrawal of the heritage charter project for the development around the Shree Jagannath temple in Puri, after BJP delegations and the ruling BJD met with him separately in Delhi to request his withdrawal. This came a day after the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) wrote to the NMA, requesting the withdrawal of the January 18 draft statutes, which prohibits any construction within a 100-meter radius of the temple. and its subsidiary sanctuaries.
The Ekamra Kshetra has a series of sandstone temples dating from the 3rd century BC and the 15th century AD In 2020, the state government planned an beautification project around the area that spanned 1,126 acres and made it a major tourist attraction.
The beautification project was recently embroiled in controversy after the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) launched an investigation into demolitions carried out by the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation that allegedly damaged ancient structures of archaeological significance.
The ruling BJD has alleged that through such laws, the central government is trying to curb development in the state to boost tourism. “With the introduction of such laws, the NMA under the Union Ministry of Culture and even the ASI, through their investigations, are trying to obstruct development activities in Ekamra Kshetra,” said BJD spokesperson Shreemayee Mishra .
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