Tottering tower left to its fate

The Vimana Gopuram of the famous Mahanandeswara Swamy temple in Mahanandi, is on the verge of collapsing and requires immediate repairs.

For the last two decades, some parts of the Gopuram had been falling down, but the authorities failed to take up any restoration.

An expert committee, which inspected the  1,500-year-old temple, during its inspection of all the ancient temples in the state in 2010, recommended reconstruction of the structure.

Since the structure is under the control of the ASI, any repairs or restoration work has to be taken up by the archaeological body. However, no steps have been taken for repair work so far. Devotees visiting the temple are concerned over the apathy of the officials and are irked by the reported lack of coordination between the endowments and ASI officials.

The ASI officials, however, denied the allegations. They said they are concerned over the condition of the structure and would allow the endowments department to take up restoration work within the ASI norms. However, a written permission from the director general of ASI has to be obtained for the purpose.

But that doesn’t seem a workable option either as the temple has not had a trust board for the past three years due to political reasons.

Temple executive officer G Divakar Babu said they had approached the archeology department and it had prepared an estimation report for the restoration of the gopuram, a month ago. The report is currently under perusal of the higher officials, he added.