The Puri Collector said that special arrangements and a queue system will soon be introduced for elderly/senior citizens coming to the temple.

'The proposed airport will help bring Jagannath devotees from across the world,' Patnaik said in the letter.

Visitors from outside Puri, however, will have to produce Covid negative reports to enter the shrine.

This year, no more than 500 people, including the temple servitors and police personnel, have been be allowed to pull the chariots. They have been permitted to do that only if they have tested negative for COVID-19.

Lord Jagannath rath yatra and activities connected to it will not be allowed this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Supreme Court said

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The imposing nine-century-old Emaar Mutt right in front of the temple, which provided a vantage platform for the high and mighty for viewing the Rath Yatra in the past, has been completely razed to the ground.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had recently announced various projects worth Rs 265 crore under the Augmentation of Basic Amenities and Development of Heritage and Architecture (ABADHA) scheme for the development of Puri.

Cyclone Fani, that ravaged parts of coastal Odisha, still has its footprints everywhere. The road to recovery appears long.

Rath Yatra festival is observed on a grand scale, and the atmosphere in Puri is completely filled with divine sounds of cymbals, manjeera, and drums, while the devotees chant out loud the names of the three deities, Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra, and Goddess Subhadra.

Puri and Khurda districts are reeling under power and drinking water shortage as rescue operations post-cyclone Fani are in full swing. Generator operators are in demand, even for charging mobile phones.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2019 exam was scheduled to be held on May 5.

Packing heavy rain and winds with speeds of up to 175 kmph, cyclonic storm 'Fani' slammed into the Odisha coast on Friday morning.

The landfall of cyclone "Fani", formed in the Bay of Bengal, began at around 8 am after the "eye" crossed the Puri coast 20 minutes past 1 am.

The Jagannath Temple chief administrator says the report of the inquiry will not be made public even under RTI as it is a very sensitive matter and involves secret rituals of the deities.

Entry of non-Hindus into the temple has always been a contentious issue.

The Puri district administration, which came to know on April 4 that the keys of the temple treasury's inner chambers were missing, stumbled upon a brown sealed envelop containing the duplicate keys on Wednesday.

A five-member team of revenue department officials headed by the local tehsildar measured the ashram land and found the irregularities on Wednesday.