By Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: After withdrawing draft heritage bylaws for Ananta Basudeva and Brahmeswar temples following protests, the National Monument Authority (NMA) has now come out with draft bylaws for Sahasralinga tank (additionally referred to as Devipadahara Kunda), mendacity solely 10 metres away from the Centrally-protected eleventh century Lingaraj temple.
The heritage tank is surrounded by 100 miniature temple-like buildings – virtually of the identical peak and dimension (every 1.52 m in peak with pyramidal roof) – that enshrine small ‘lingas’ and date again to the eleventh century. At current, 77 of those miniature temples are in good state of preservation and solely 5 are being worshipped.
The tank is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and included within the State authorities’s 66-acre Ekamra Kshetra Yojana. The programme plans to revive and protect the normal water system within the space which incorporates Sahasralinga tank, Papanasini Kund, Godabari, Kotirtha tank and Ganga Jamuna Kund. The tank has additionally been earmarked as a Special Heritage Zone within the complete growth plan of Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA).
The NMA draft bylaws prohibit building of any sort inside 100 metre of the tank and regulate constructions on additional 200 metres. Besides, they’ll prohibit the peak of buildings positioned within the north facet of the tank at 10 mtr, south and east at 12 mtr and south-west at 7 mtr. No fashionable constructions can be permitted within the space together with aluminium cladding, artificial tiles, french doorways, massive glass facades and staircase shafts. It additional states that LED or some other extremely reflective artificial materials might not be used for signages within the space and banners can solely be permitted throughout particular occasions however for no more than three days.
The NMA has instructed making the prohibited and controlled zones of the tank as plastic-free and hawker/vendor-free zones. While some encroachments across the tank had been not too long ago eliminated by the BMC, roads, cart tracks and footpaths moreover, some buildings live on round its prohibited and controlled areas.
Ananta Basudeva fiasco forgotten
Earlier after BMC had demolished a number of buildings near Lingaraj temple as per Ekamra plan, the NMA had launched the draft bylaws for Ananta Basudeva temple which is positioned inside 300 metre radius of the shrine. The draft bylaws coated a piece of the Lingaraj shrine in its regulated zone, which led to protests from numerous political and socio-cultural outfits. The NMA needed to subsequently withdraw the draft bylaws and Union Culture Minister Prahlad Singh Patel introduced that any resolution on preserving the temple can be made after consultations with the Odisha authorities and all stakeholders. The NMA has invited objections and options on the draft legal guidelines for the tank by July 15.
