Puri, April 18: Thousands of devotees visiting Puri Jagannath Temple are suffering to walk down from shoe stand at Marchikote Square in Grand Road, known as Badadanda, to the newly constructed AC shed under the Parikrama Project amid unbearable heat.
With maximum temperature of the pilgrim town hovering around 40 degree Celsius amid heatwave conditions in Odisha, devotees find it very painful to walk down the concrete Badadanda barefoot that is literally burning after 9 am.
Devotees have to walk down over 500 meter from shoe stand to have a Darshan of the trinity, take round of the shrine and return back. It is seen that devotees are not visiting the heritage corridor after the Darshan of Trinity as they are not braving to walk barefoot on the scorching concrete anymore.
Besides, shortage of drinking water in the heritage corridor has worsened the sufferings of the devotees.
Deputy fire officer Narayan Das said around 9000 litres of water is being sprayed on the Parikram Marg in two phases daily following the directive of the district administration and three vehicles have been deployed for this in two shifts.
