Fact Check: Odisha govt not selling 35K acres of Jagannath land
A newspaper clipping reportedly from Odisha Post with the headline “35K acres Jagannath land to be sold out” is being circulated on social media.
By Satya Priya BN Published on 11 April 2021 9:15 AM GMT
Hyderabad: A newspaper clipping reportedly from Odisha Post with the headline "35K acres Jagannath land to be sold out" is being circulated on social media.
One Facebook user shared the clipping and wrote, "One more attack on Temple's assets by Odisha secular government.. Odisha govt is going to sell temple land related to Jagannath Temple. The temple owns 64k acres of land out of which 34k acres of land are to be sold out."
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Fact Check:
The claim that the Odisha government is planning to sell over 35,000 acres of land belonging to Lord Jagannath of Puri is FALSE.
The Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has dismissed these reports. Here are the tweets by SJTA.
Rubbishing the reports of land sale, SJTA chief administrator Krishan Kumar said the claim was "false" and "motivated". He said, "The lands, which are occupied or are under the possession of various persons since long but belong to Shree Jagannath Mahaprabhu is being settled by the temple committee as per the unified policy framed for the purpose in the year 2003 with an objective of protecting the land of Lord Jagannath."
Timesnownews.com also quoted him as saying, "The objective of the Unified Policy was to protect the land of Lord Jagannatha. This policy also aimed to bring transparency and uniformity in the processes to be followed for the settlement of land to eligible persons. It is important to note that from 2001 to 2010, 291 acres of land was settled, and from 2011 to 2021, 96 acres of land have been settled. These have been settled for the benefit of the public mostly in the form of schools, medical college, roads, etc."
According to ANI, the SJTA chief administrator said decisions regarding the allotment of land for such public benefit infrastructure projects to the government and others are taken by the Jagannath Temple Committee.
"It is again reiterated that reports that 35,000 acres of the land of Shree Jagannatha Mahaprabhu will be sold is totally false and motivated. We urge the people of Odisha and millions of devotees of Lord Jagannatha not to be misguided by such malicious lies and false reporting," he said.
The clarification from SJTA came after the news quoting law minister Pratap Jena in response to a question by BJP legislator Mohan Majhi in the Assembly regarding the state government's move to sell 35,272.235 acres of the temple land.
Hence, the claim that the Odisha government is planning to sell over 35,000 acres of land belonging to Lord Jagannath of Puri is FALSE.
