Pahari Mandir, the temple atop Ranchi hill, hoists national flag on every Independence Day and there was no exception this year, too.

“Owing to the current pandemic restrictions, only four of us were present this year, besides the priests,” said Prem Shankar Choudhary, member of Pahari Mandir Vikash Samiti.

Choudhary said he had been hosting the flag for the past 25 years.

Scores of people visit Pahari Mandir during Shivaratri and the month of Shravan to pray to Lord Shiva — the presiding deity here.

The temple hoists the national flag every Republic Day, too.

In the initial years of British rule, it is believed there was a gallows on the hillock where many freedom fighters were executed and the hillock became known as Fansi Dungri.

When the country became independent, the residents of Ranchi went there in a procession and hoisted the national flag atop the hillock on the midnight of August 14, 1947, before it was done anywhere else.

The flag grabbed national headlines when then Union defence minister Manohar Parrikar inaugurated hoisting of the country’s largest national flag there on January 23, 2016.

The flag, measuring 99ftx33ft and weighing 60kg, was put on a 293ft-high mast that was hoisted by a mechanical device. But the flag fluttering at about 500ft above the ground could not withstand air pressure and suffered tears a few times, causing embarrassment to both the temple committee and district administration.

It also experienced glitches like the steel wire that was used slipped out of the rotation wheel placed on the top of the mast.

Following this, a public interest litigation alleging disrespect to the Tricolour was filed in Jharkhand High Court which, in turn, directed in August 2016, that the flag be hoisted there on special occasions only and the flag code followed.

Subsequently, no one took the risk of hoisting the largest flag again and the practice of hoisting a normal flag on the top of the temple was resumed next year. And the tradition continues.