Digha Jagannath temple drawing queries from foreign tourists: ISKCON

The newly-inaugurated Jagannath temple in West Bengal's Puri is drawing queries from foreign tourists, mainly devotees of the ISKCON, leading to an expectation of their visit to the shrine.

The Digha temple came as a blessing for foreigners who are not allowed to enter the famed 12th-century Jagannath shrine in Puri, said Radharamn Das, vice president of Kolkata ISKCON.

International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is managing the Digha temple which is a replica of the Jagannath shrine in Puri in neighbouring Odisha.

"Lots of foreigners are coming from various countries. During the inauguration of the temple, people of nearly 150 nationalities from across the world were in attendance," Das, also the ISKCON Kolkata spokesperson, told PTI.

He said that with many of these visitors sharing videos of the April 30 inauguration programme on social media, "we are flooded with queries from people of different countries."

Das said they sought information about stay options at Digha, an extremely popular tourist destination by the Bay of Bengal.

"There are good hotels for every budget at Digha, but there is always the possibility of more such facilities to come up as tourism is expected to boom after the temple was inaugurated," he said.

Generally, hotels are booked to the brim in Digha and neighbouring beach resorts during weekends.

Digha Sankarpur Hoteliers' Association president Susanta Patra said that expectations of an increase in tourist footfall following the inauguration of the temple are high.

"We hope that this will lead to a significant rise in tourist footfall at Digha, including foreigners," he said.

Das said that Alfred Ford, great-grandson of American business tycoon Henry Ford and an ISKCON devotee, is expected to visit the Digha temple.

"I have invited him, I am sure he will come with his family," the ISKCON spokesperson said.

Maintaining that the inauguration of the temple has led to a tourist boom in Digha, he expressed confidence that business people will be keen to invest in setting up hotels, from five-star category to budget facilities, and other allied supports like transportation, etc.

"Foreigners are considering this new temple as a blessing as they can have Jagannath darshan and since the architecture is similar to Puri, they can experience how it looks from inside while visiting the temple at Digha," Das said.

"Many people from all over the world are looking forward to coming to Digha," he said.

Das claimed that the Digha temple is becoming a part of the itinerary of foreign devotees of ISKCON for their visit to India.

He maintained that a large part of western visitors to West Bengal are ISKCON devotees, who visit Mayapur and also Kolkata.

Mayapur, located in West Bengal's Nadia district, is the global headquarters of ISKCON.

"When the new temple at Mayapur will be inaugurated, West Bengal will take a quantum leap in foreign tourist footfall, thanks to the ISKCON devotees," he said.

The temple of the Vedic Planetarium, also known as Sri Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir, is a grand structure under construction at Mayapur.

Das said that around 20 lakh people visited the Jagannath temple at Digha in just over a fortnight since it was inaugurated on April 30 by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

Das said that since Digha is situated very close to the state border with Odisha, around 60 per cent of the devotees visiting the Lord Jagannath temple are from the neighbouring state.

"With the word having spread like wildfire that such a big temple has come up, people from Tripura, Jharkhand and Bihar are also visiting the temple in large numbers," the ISKCON spokesperson said.

Das said that the people visiting the temple are having darshan of Shri Jagannath, the presiding deity, along with Balabhadra and Subhadra, in a hassle-free manner.

"Devotees start queuing up at least one hour before the temple opens in the morning. Similar scenes are witnessed in the evenings also," he said.