ASI to open passage in Sun temple’s Jagamohan for sand removal

Bhubaneswar: The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has moved a step closer towards removing sand from the sealed Jagamohan of the Sun Temple at Konark, Odisha’s only World Heritage Site.The national conservation body has started digging a passage between the first and the second ‘pidha’ on the western wall of the Jagamohan for removal of sand and conservation of the inner structure, which has remained sealed for the last 123 years. The dimension of the passage will be 6 ft x 5 ft through which sand will be removed manually,” superintending archaeologist of ASI (Puri circle) D B Garnayak said.The process started on Tuesday after the modalities of it were approved by the director general of ASI, Yadubir Singh Rawat, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, ascertained that removing sand will not pose a threat to the structural safety of the Jagamohan.ASI has already created a working platform through which the sand will be brought down using trolleys. “We are now creating the passage, which will take some time because the process will be done very slowly and carefully,” Garnayak said.In Dec last year, two core drillings were done on the western wall of the Jagamohan (the same point which the British had used to fill in sand into the structure for its safety) in RPM (revolutions per minute)-controlled conditions through the diamond drilling method to ensure zero vibrations or any structural damage to the 13th-century monument.The sand from Jagamohan and stones of the walls collected during the process were examined by IIT-Madras to understand their condition. In its report, it stated that the condition was good and there is no threat to any of the four walls of the centrally protected structure.The Jagamohan stands at a height of 38 mtr from the base to the existing top. Preliminary examination during the core drillings revealed that the sand had settled by 13.5 mtrs from the top of the structure. In 2019, the Roorkee-based Central Building Research Institute (CBRI), which examined structural damages in the Jagamohan, found that sand had settled by 12 ft.The British had filled the Jagamohan with sand from 1901 to 1903 to prevent the ageing structure from collapsing.