Puri, Mar 20 (PTI) Almost two years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Odisha government opened the doors of the 12th century Lord Jagannath Temple for devotees from this Sunday.

The shrine was opened for the public from Monday to Saturday on February 21, after remaining closed for almost 21 days due to a spike in coronavirus cases during the third wave in January.

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The decision to open the temple on Sundays was taken keeping in view a significant decline in the number of COVID-19 cases in the state.

The coastal state on Sunday registered 45 fresh cases which is the lowest in nearly two years, taking the tally to 12,87,153, the Health Department said.

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Odisha now has 627 active cases, while 12,77,357 people have recovered from the disease so far, it said.

The temple used to remain closed on Sundays for sanitization of the premises.

Given the significant decline in COVID-19 cases across the nation and improvement in the pandemic situation, the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has taken the decision to allow the entry of devotees into the temple on Sundays.

Now sanitization will be done during the night and not by closing the temple, an official note said.

The devotees are allowed to pay obeisance to deities from the time of opening of ‘Singhadwara' (Lion's gate) in the early morning till ‘pahada' (closure of the door) every day, including Sundays.

Though most of the restrictions on devotees have been withdrawn, visitors need to follow the Covid appropriate behaviour such as wearing masks, maintaining social distance, and hand sanitization.

The decision to open the temple on Sundays has come as big relief for the devotees, especially those who work in offices.

As Sunday is a holiday for them, they can now visit the temple.

The SJTA has also withdrawn the restriction of producing double vaccination certificates or RT-PCR COVID negative reports for entering the shrine.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)