Puri district administration on Friday auctioned nearly 10,332 quintals of Arpan Rice, collected from people across the state by the BJD in a special drive ahead of the inauguration of the Srimandira Parikrama project in January 2024.

The Arpan Rice was offered by devotees to the 12th-century Puri Jagannath Temple. The devotees offered the rice so that it would be used to make mahaprasad.

Puri district collector Siddharth Shankar Swain told reporters in Puri: “A rice mill owner from Nimapada purchased all the rice at ₹2,780 per quintal. We will get ₹2.87 crore. The rice mill will deposit the money in three phases. The money will be deposited in the Shree Jagannath temple fund.”

The BJD collected rice from the people with a promise that it would be used in the mahaprasad and later distributed to the people free of cost.

A total of 14,017.23 quintals of Arpan Rice were collected from people across the state and later brought to Puri before the Puri Parikrama project. Out of this, 3,856.84 quintals of rice were used to make the mahaprasad.

However, with the change of government, the Mohan Charan Majhi government decided not to proceed after allegations from servitors and devotees that the rice collected from the devotees was almost stale and not in good condition to be used for the mahaprasad.

Later, the district administration held a detailed discussion with the servitors’ association and temple officials about disposing of the rice. The government formed a committee headed by a sub-collector to oversee the tender process for disposing of the rice.