Kolkata opens up Temples with revised norms
Posted on June 18, 2020 by Ghoomophiro
Good news for Kolkata Residents as their places of worship are about to open with a whole set of rulebooks!
Devotees in Kolkata can now again get the divine experience of visiting temples but have to comply with all essential COVID-19 measures. They further need to ensure that there is no chaos at the temple places so that people maintain the basic social distancing rules and other disciplinary actions. The country has begun with its unlocking phase and people are now learning this style of living. All public places are now starting up with a particular set of protocols to be strictly followed. It is also made crystal clear by the Kolkata Government that any kind of disobey of guidelines would be a severe offense.
COVID -19 has somewhere set a permanent social distancing and sanitization requirement as long as any specific vaccine for this contagious disease has not been evident. It is made sure that the devotees giving a visit to the temple can stay protected from this very deadly outbreak.
Temples in Kolkata are opened up after ensuring that all regulations required for safety purposes are fulfilled. It was started up when a religious place with historic importance in West Bengal, Dakshineshwar Kali Temple reopened on June 13. However, it was mandatory to follow a revised set of the rulebook for all the people coming up there.
A new way to Temple Visit in Kolkata
Temple authorities have made sure that people stay minimum at the distance of 1 meter and also wear masks, gloves and carry their sanitizers. Timings to allow ‘Darshan’ is also very restricted so that people do not gather making huge crowds. Any kind of huge gathering can lead to a big mess.
On the first day when Daskhineshwar Kali Temple was re-opened after almost a two and half months gap and it witnessed a crowd of more than a thousand devotees. The number of people visiting the premises is quite huge even though the timings are very much abridged. It means that the temple would be open between 7 AM to 10 AM and 3 PM to 6 PM.
Everyone must be geared up
Another important thing to be noted by the devotees was that any kind of flowers or other forms of offerings is strictly prohibited. People cannot even offer any ‘Prasad’ as anything that can be a carrier of infection is to be avoided. All priests arriving at the temple must wear PPE kits.
Markings are made in the temple courtyard and the people should stand within the setpoints. Officials appointed by the Temple authorities would be in PPE kits and ensure that scanning is done for every person getting in the courtyard. Thermal scanners and sanitizers are available at the entry desks. After ensuring that every devotee is covering up the face with masks, they can enter the temple and that too in a limited group of 10 people.
Another famous Kalighat temple is also about to open up in the next week. But they have still not made up their mind whether the devotees can enter the core Sanctorum or not. As far as other temples are concerned, spokesperson of the temple trust, Kushal Chowdhary said, “We allowed dry prasad as darshan is incomplete without a small offering. But flowers and bhoga no-no.”
Just like Kolkata, other places in India are also unlocking up but only after complying with the updates norms stated by respective state Governments.
