BHUBANESWAR : After a gap of 46 years, the inner chamber (Bhitar Bhandar) of Shri Jagannath temple’s Ratna Bhandar at Puri will be opened on Sunday for inventorisation and conservation. The state government provided the temple administration the standard operating procedure (SOP) for the process on Saturday evening.

Speaking to The New Indian Express, retired judge of Orissa High Court Justice Biswanath Rath who chairs the panel to supervise inventorisation and conservation of the treasury said that the SOP will be for opening of the Ratna Bhandar, shifting of the ornaments and precious jewels to a designated room inside the temple besides, assessment of the treasury’s structural condition and its repair.

 A separate SOP for inventory of the jewels, ornaments and other valuables of the treasury will be released by the state government later. At 10 am on Sunday, the high-level committee under the chairmanship of Justice Rath, the temple managing committee and officials of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) will meet separately to decide on the time and the number of people who would enter the treasury. The timing will most likely be after 1 pm, he said.

A medical team will be stationed inside the sanctum sanctorum in case of any emergency. Similarly, a Snake Helpline team will also be kept in readiness and called if necessary.

“Tomorrow, we will enter the Ratna Bhandar and make an attempt to assess its structural condition. Since this is a highly sensitive matter, only two members from the high-level committee, a team of temple administration, managing committee and ASI officials, temple servitors who are in charge of the Ratna Bhandar will enter the treasury in addition to the Collector and ADM because there might be a need for breaking open the locks to the inner chamber of Ratna Bhandar,” he said.

To start with, Justice Rath said the team which enters the Ratna Bhandar will look into shifting the ornaments, jewels and other valuables of the Ratna Bhandar to the designated room in the temple and allow the ASI officials to carry out its assessment of the structural condition of the treasury and take up repair works. “Inventory of the ornaments and jewels will take some time and the government will release a separate SOP for that,” he added.

Meanwhile, Law Minister Prithiviraj Harichandan informed that the available keys to the Ratna Bhandar will be handed over to the team on Sunday. “Efforts will be made to open the locks with the available keys but if that does not work, the locks will be broken in the presence of the magistrate,” Harichandan said.

He further said that the inventory of the Ratna Bhandar valuables will be done transparently in the presence of experts teams and officials of Reserve Bank of India. “Every jewellery, its weight, caratage will be documented, the valuables photographed and at the same time, a digital catalogue of the jewelleries and precious stones will be made which will act as a reference for future inventories. The entire process of inventory will be documented,” the Law Minister said.

The rituals and darshan of the Trinity will not be affected by the conservation and inventory work, he added.

The inventory of both the outer and inner chambers of the treasury was last conducted in 1978 by a nine-member committee headed by the then governor of Odisha BD Sharma. The Bhitara Bhandar was last opened in 1982 and 1985.

According to the temple records, on December 26, 1982, 3,337 Bhari and 10 Anna (16 Anna is 1 Bhari) of silver was taken out of Bhitara Bhandar and on June 14, 1985, 1,113 Bhari and 7 Anna of gold were taken out of the inner chamber.

Standing at a height of 11.78 mt and having a width of 8.79 mt x 6.74 mt, Ratna Bhandar is located on the northern side of the main temple’s Jagamohana. It has two chambers – Bahara Bhandar (outer chamber) and Bhitara Bhandar (inner chamber) – containing the jewels of divine Siblings. Ratna Bhandar’s northern wall is the point of conjunction between the treasury and the main temple.