Dikhyaa Mohanty 
Today will mark the start of repairs for the Jagannath Temple at Puri’s Natamandap (Dancing Hall). Sources state that the repairs would be completed by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) through March 19.Daily hours for the repair work will be 1 pm to pm. On February 21, at the Chhatisa Nijog meeting, a resolution was made in this regard.For the seamless operation of temple rituals, it was also decided at the conference that the Lion’s Gate will open at two in the morning and the Ratra Pahuda ceremony will be performed at eleven at night.
It should be noted that the Orissa High Court was notified by lawyer N K Mohanty, amicus curiae in the PIL on conservation of the Jagannath Temple, Puri, that the damaged beam inside the Natamandap requires immediate repair. This led to the decision to repair the temple. Mohanty had stated in a report that fixing the fractured beam inside the Natamandap is urgently needed since there is always a danger of an accident because the structure is acting as a cantilever from both sides.
The ASI has made the decision to bury a support beam beneath the cracked beam in order to solve the problem. In the event of a structural imbalance or calamity, the structural beam will be present to relieve pressure.
