Odisha: Land in Puri for guest house of each district urged

BHUBANESWAR: Leader of Opposition Pradipta Kumar Naik on Wednesday urged chief minister Naveen Patnaik to provide land patches in Puri in favour of each district so that they can build guest houses to cater to needy pilgrims from the districts concerned.
Naik in his letter said the state government should allot half acre of land for each district in a compact patch of land in Puri town with a good guest house/Bhawan in the name of the concerned district so that the devotees can comfortably stay in the guest houses of their respective districts at the beach town.He said the guest houses will be like the ones constructed at New Delhi for each state.
He said devotees of all districts in the state frequently visit Puri to pay obeisance to the holy trinity Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and goddess Subhadra. During the festive occasions including Rath Yatra, Bahuda Yatra, Kartik Purnima, Dola Purnima, Nagarjuna Besha and Tila Saptami, the poor people do not get a shelter to stay in the town and face a lot of problem, he added.
“Prior to 1959, the devotees coming to Puri were staying at the inns at Batamangala owned by the Pandas (servitors). But now-a-days, most of the inns of the Pandas have been either demolished or in damaged condition for which the pilgrims stay at hotels or come back. In my opinion, it will be better to provide a government accommodation to each devotee at Puri smooth darshan of Lord Jagannath,” stated Naik in his letter.