Ghatagaon: Good news for tourists and devotees coming to the famous Tarini shrine here in Keonjhar district. The shrine is going to witness a major beautification drive and developmental work. The government is planning to make it more attractive with various facilities for devotees.
A high level team led by the Collector visited the shrine January 25 and took stock of the available facilities.
Chief engineer Jaykrushna Das, engineers Gyana Beura, Abanikant Das, Trinath Behera, architect Akshaya Beura, executive engineer of R&B division Ashok Kumar Giri, sub-collector Ramchandra Kisku, tehsildar Janak Nayak along with officials of the revenue department inspected the location of the temple and its peripheral areas in a map at Ghatagaon inspection bungalow.
They visited the NH-20, a bypass, the Ghatagaon bus stand area, the eastern side of the temple, Hadapadia near the Tehsil office, Medical Road and the temple premises.
They drew up a master plan detailing about arrangement of darshan of the deity in queues, accommodation for tourists and devotees, parking facility for vehicles, drinking water facility, shopping complex, bhog shops and drainage system.
The team prepared a preliminary report about it and submitted it to Collector Ashish Thakare. The Collector, after scrutinising the report, will forward it to the state government.
After the Srimandir in Puri and Sun Temple in Konark, the Tarini shrine has emerged as a major tourist destination in the state with thousands of people visiting it on a daily basis.
However, for lack of basic facilities, visitors are facing a lot of problems. About two weeks ago, Chief Secretary Asit Kumar Tripathy during his visit to Keonjhar had visited the shrine.
Tripathy had felt shortcomings of some facilities at the shrine. He had asked the Collector to pay attention to the shortcomings.
The visit of the high-level technical team is pointing to the fact that the shrine is going to see a major overhaul of its infrastructure.