The administration of the Sri Jagannath temple in Puri on Sunday announced relaxations to the restrictions imposed on the visitors to the shrine that reopened recently after a nine-month closure forced by the corona pandemic.

The 12th Century temple administration, following a high-level meeting on Sunday, decided that devotees will no more have to submit Covid-19 negative reports for darshan of the deities from January 21. This was announced by the chief temple administrator Krishan Kumar.

Kumar said the decision to relax restrictions was taken in the interest of devotees. Now the temple administration will make special arrangements to facilitate the “darshan’ of the deities by elderly people. “The temple will remain closed once a week (Sundays) to carry out sanitation and disinfection measures. Steps have been taken to make provision of darshan by nearly 30,000 devotees per day. All the Covid-19 related restrictions will continue to remain in force,” said Kumar.

The temple had reopened on December 23, 2020 but initially only the temple servitors and their family members were only allowed to have “darshan” of the deities.

The ordinary citizens of Puri were allowed entry into the temple between December 26 and 31. Later, the temple opened its doors to the public but Covid-19 negative report was made mandatory for entry.

Visitors are also screened at the special counters set up outside the temple.