Soon after Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi’s swearing-in ceremony, the BJP-led state government decided in its first Cabinet meeting that all four gates to the Shri Jagannath Temple in Puri would reopen early Thursday morning.
“The state government has decided to reopen all four gates of the Puri Jagannath Temple early tomorrow morning, in the presence of all ministers. Devotees will be able to enter the temple through all four gates, Majhi said in a statement.
The CM emphasized that opening all four gates of the Puri Jagannath Temple was one of the BJP’s main election promises in Odisha and that devotees were inconvenienced as a result of the gate closures.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the previous Naveen Patnaik-led government has kept the temple’s four gates closed. Devotees can only enter through one gate, which often leads to overcrowding on the temple grounds. As a result, there were demands for all four gates to be opened.
Furthermore, the Majhi-led state government established a Rs 500 crore corpus fund to address the popular Hindu shrine’s immediate needs. Mohan Charan Majhi, along with BJP MLAs and ministers, including Kanak Vardhan Singh, paid a visit to the temple.
Aside from that, the Odisha cabinet approved a proposal to increase the minimum support price (MSP) for paddy to Rs 3,100 per quintal, and a committee will be formed soon to implement the proposal. A special policy called Samruddha Krushak Niti Yojana’ will also be framed to deal with problems related to farmers.
“This will be done within a span of first 100 days of the government,” Majhi stated. He also mentioned that the previous Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government’s efforts to empower women and improve child welfare had failed. The new government will implement the Subhadra Yojana within the first 100 days, with women receiving a cash voucher worth Rs 50,000 each.
“The departments are told to prepare guidelines and roadmaps for the implementation of the Subhadra Yojana,” said the chief minister.