Odisha to Sponsor Travel of 950,000 Pilgrims to Puri's Jagannath Temple

Odisha is contemplating a proposal to sponsor the travel of nearly 1 million Jagannath pilgrims to Puri for the next five years, government officials familiar with the situation said. The state government had first announced the same while tabling the state budget in February.

" Now pilgrims' experience will have a tendency to create an environment of inner peace and spiritual harmony among the pilgrims, which could be a satisfying experience for them and for their well-being and perception towards life, a common spiritual experience, promoting peace and harmony. They still continue to worship in Jagannath temple is an age-old dream of crores of poor and downtrodden masses of the state," a tourism department official said.

The government plans to introduce a new scheme, Shree Jagannath Darshan Yojana, that will transport 950,000 citizens from all over the state to the Lord Jagannath temple in Puri by bus and train. It would be mainly for people above 50 years of age, with special focus on weaker sections. There will be no upper age limit for widows to be eligible to go on the pilgrimage under the scheme.

The Yatra is of great religious importance to all strata of people, and the scheme would allow them to see the holy pilgrimage. Social inclusion, especially for 50 years and above and widows who might have restricted means to achieve their religious desire, would be extended under the scheme. The scheme would promote regional and cultural pride and help conserve the heritage of the state," the official added.

In 2016, the then Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government introduced the Baristha Nagarik Tirtha Yatra Yojana for the Odisha state citizens in the age bracket of 60-75 years. The scheme would enable the individuals to apply for reimbursement of the cost for going to pilgrim sites such as Kanyakumari, Trivandrum, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Kamakhya, Shirdi, Nasik, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Gaya, Tirupati, Ajmer, Pushkar and Mathura by rail. But the devottees would have to subsidize 50% of the transportation and accommodation cost.

The state government would, through the Shree Jagannath Darshan Yatra scheme, be expending anything between ₹6,700 to ₹17,000 for each of the pilgrims based on the districts they hail from.

The latest scheme is different from the Baristha Nagarik Tirtha Yatra Yojana scheme in the sense that it does not ask devotees to shell out a single penny.

The recipients would be selected by lottery, and it was the responsibility of the district administration to pick and drop the followers from home. 

BJD mocked the scheme, highlighting that the number of beneficiaries was less than over 2% of the total population estimated to be over 46 million in the state.

BJD senior leader Debi Prasad Mishra said that the quoted amount of 950,000 seems to be meager in the state population. "The government can try to provide at least half of the target number so that poor people do not miss out on the scheme," he further said.

BJD MLA from Nayagarh Arun Sahoo recalled that when previous Naveen Patnaik administration launched Jagannath Parikrama project, BJP criticized the scheme on the pretext of accusation that BJD was politicizing religion for voting purposes. "They are repeating the same thing. BJP has repeated the same thing that we have done in the last one year. They have only renamed our schemes," Sahoo claimed.

In the meantime, political analyst Rabi Das said that the scheme can create emotional goodwill, particularly among rural and tribal voters. "This branding under the name of Jagannath goes beyond political fault-finding, and by creating an expanded acceptability from among the people, allows them to build party loyal vote banks for upcoming elections. The plan also turns around the Biju Janata Dal tradition of communal appeasement by reaching out to empower marginalized sections hitherto associated with the BJD," he added further.