The state government has initiated a process to sell 35,272 acres of land belonging to lord Jagannath in Odisha and six other states -Law minister Prataap Jena told assembly on Tuesday

Giving a written reply to a question of BJP lawmaker minister Charan Majhi, Jena said as per the recommendations of a committee formed under the chairmanship of then Governor B. D. Sharma, the government is taking necessary steps to sell 35,272,235 acres of land properties of the temple.

Jena said lord Jagannath owns 60,426,943 acers spread over 24 district of the 30 district of Odisha . Out of which, the temple administration could prepare final record of rights over 34,876,983 acers of land. In accordance with the recommendation of the commission, steps are being taken to sell out the lands as per State Government approved Uniform Policy (Saman nitti) the minister of assembly told.

Meanwhile,the government has already sold 315,337 acres of Jagannath land including Bharatiyon Matha building in Cuttack city and 11.20 crore earned from the land sale has been deposited in the temple corpus fund the minister had told.

Similarly steps are taken to sell 395,252 acres of land identified in six outside of Odisha. The government has written ot concern District Collectors in this purpose.

Sources said the 12 th century temple has maximum of 322,930 acres in West Bengal followed by 28,218 acres in Maharashtra, 25,110 acre in Madhya Pradesh, 17,020 in Andra Pradesh, 17,000 in Chhattisgarh and 274 acre in Bihar. The minister further added about 100 acre of land has been identified at Bagha area and government is collecting share amount of paddy each year from sharecropper. A khamari has been engaged at Bagha in this purpose while other Khamari has been engaged at Dochhian to take care of land properties located in the area, he said adding paddy collected from the Dochhian area is also sold each year .

Beside 582,255 acre located in Khudra have been given to Odisha Cashew Development Corporation (OCDC) on a lease basis. In return the government is getting 3 lakh from the corporate achi year. According to the sources, people who have occupied Sri Mandir land for more than 30years would have to pay ₹6lakh per acre to take the temple land in possession.

Those who have acquired land for less than 30 years bit more than 20 years will have to pay ₹9lakh per acre,beside those who occupied land for less than 20 year bit more than 12 year would have to pay ₹15lakh per acre. The law minister further said that the state government has constituted 4 commission to bring reforms and probe in various incident related to the Jagannath temple.

The panels are -Justice B. K. Patra commission and B. D. Sharma,Justice P. k. Mohanty commission and justice B. P. Das commission. To implement various recommendations made by the commission, a committee has been constituted understand the chairman ship of temple Chief administrator following the approves of the Shree Jagannath Temple Managing Committee.

Lord Jagannath temple needs you please let’s bring this issue in lime light and ask the government to stop selling our temples and their properties and hand it over to their devotees.