BHUBANESWAR: The Jagannath Temple in Odisha’s Puri owns over 60,822 acres of land in the state and six other provinces in the country.
According to Odisha law minister Jagannath Saraka, a total of 60,426.943 acres of land in the name of Mahaprabhu Jagannath Bije (Jagannath Temple), Puri, have been identified in 24 of the 30 districts of Odisha.
Of these, the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has received the final Record of Rights (RoR) over 38,061.892 acres of land, he said.
Similarly, at least 395.252 acres of land in six other states were identified in the name of Lord Jagannath, Saraka said, while replying to a written reply to ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) member Prasanta Behera in Odisha Legislative Assembly on Saturday.
The minister said that the temple has already lodged 974 encroachment cases in different tehsils of the state to remove illegal encroachments.
The cases were filed as per the provision of the Shri Jagannath Temple Act, 1955, after the conduct of a proper inquiry by SJTA officials, he added.
Sources in the state revenue department said the 12th Century temple has 322.939 acres of land in West Bengal followed by 28.218 acres in Maharashtra, 25.110 acres in Madhya Pradesh, 17,020 in Andhra Pradesh, 1,700 acres in Chhattisgarh and .0274 acres in Bihar.
Till today, the state government has sold out 315.337 acres of Jagannath Temple's land. This, among others, includes the Bharati Matha building in Cuttack city. It fetched Rs 11.20 crore revenue. The money has been deposited in the temple corpus fund, the sources added.
