By Our Correspondent
PURI:In accordance with the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) approved by the state government and as per the decision of the temple’s management committee, today, March 25, 2026, at 12.09 pm, the counting of the ornaments and valuables stored in the temple’s Ratna Bhandar (current Ratna Bhandar) was started by opening the doors of the Ratna Bhandar in the presence of a magistrate, while maintaining strict security and purity.
Today, the authorized members for the counting of the gems and jewellery, etc., were present at the office of the temple at the scheduled time and after giving a declaration to protect the confidentiality of the information related to the gems and jewellery, the authorized senior officers, Chhatisha Niyog Nayak, members of the Gems and Jewellery Sub-Committee and all the associates, led by the Chief Administrator of the temple, Dr. Arvind Padhi and the Chairman of the High Level Committee for the Gems and Jewellery, Justice Rath, entered the temple at 11.00 am.
Before entering the Ratna Bhandar of the temple, all the authorized members wore traditional clothes. The Chief Administrator advised the authorized members to keep any metal objects they had with them outside before entering the Ratna Bhandar and warned them to act according to tradition.
After this, the Chief Administrator along with all the authorized members took the blessings of Maa Bimala, Maa Bhubaneswari and finally Maa Laxmi Thakurani for blessings. After checking the metal detector installed near the Beheran gate for security reasons, the members involved in the enumeration process entered. The ongoing inventory of jewelry from the gem store to the jewelry store was checked by the members of the jewelry store, gemologists, and weight measurement officers involved in the inventory process, and all the procedures were carried out correctly, and the inventory was photographed and videotaped, and an E-Catalogue was made.
After the completion of today’s inventory counting process, the doors of the inventory were closed and sealed in the presence of the Magistrate. All the recording data chips of the said process were kept safely in the strong room of the branch office of the temple in the presence of the Magistrate.
The Chief Administrator expressed his gratitude to all the servants, officials, and devotees for their unwavering cooperation as today’s census process was completed smoothly by following all the rules and regulations as per the government’s guidelines.
