Puri: The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) would soon introduce several reform measures for efficient management of gold, silver and money collected from the shrine hundi (donation box).
A decision to this effect was taken at a recently held meeting of the Shree Jagannath Temple Managing Committee here.
Henceforth, the temple administration would deposit gold and silver collected from the shrine hundi in Srimandir’s bank locker every Monday.
As per the proposed reform measures, the SJTA would not keep gold and silver collected from the donation box in its own treasury. “The SJTA would keep aside 2 kg to 2.5 kg gold for the repair of the ornaments of the presiding deities and invest the remaining yellow metal in Sovereign Gold Bond scheme which would yield 2.5 per cent interest per annum for the shrine,” said an SJTA official.
As per the reform proposals, the SJTA would install four donation boxes on the shrine premises. The temple managing committee has constituted a five-member team to identify suitable locations for installation of the donation boxes.
At present, the temple has only one donation box at the Natamandap. The reform measures suggest the SJTA to relocate the hundi to somewhere else.
“The temple administration would take steps to connect the CCTVs installed to keep tabs on the counting of money collected from the temple hundi with the mobile phone of SJTA chief administrator,” said the official.
The state government had decided to set up a hundi on Srimandir premises in 1983. Information received from the SJTA through an RTI application claimed that Srimandir authorities have collected altogether 18.261 kg gold and 119.78 kg silver from the hundi since its installation.