Bhubaneswar, Sept. 1: Orissa may pride itself as the land of temples, but the very same temples are stalling the expansion of its national highways criss-crossing the state.

With places of worship cropping up along the National highways (NH), the four-lane highway has hit a massive divine obstacle.

The numerous gods and goddesses residing near the NH may now have to move out, after the Orissa government?s decision to demolish all such religious structures coming in the way of expansion. But not many see this in good light.

A high-level meeting, called by the chief secretary Subas Pani on Tuesday, to review the progress of around 438 km of NHs under construction, found that the existence of 56 religious structures along the NH-5 had posed as obstacles to the widening work.

Of these 56, 16 are located in Jajpur district, 23 in Kendrapara district and seven in Jagatsinghpur district.

The NHAI has taken up the widening of the NH-5 (A), also known as the Paradip-Daitari Expressway, since March 2004.

The Rs 500 crore project is being executed by Hindustan Construction Limited, while another private sector company Lee Associates, is providing the technical know-how.

The four lanes of the NHs is expected to be complete by 2006.

Religious structures such as Tarini temples, Hanuman temples and masjids that dot the national highways, have been creating a lot of problems for the expansion of the highways.

The drive to demolish some of these structures had invited opposition from a section of temple trustees, priests and devotees.

They contended that such a move would hurt the religious sentiments of thousands of devotees, who see the presence of the divine powers that be as a safe guard in long distance travel.

The stubborn stand adopted by them for the past couple of months had posed a major hurdle in the early completion of the NH four-lane project.

Incidentally, these places of worship were built unlawfully on encroached government land along the highway over the years. But they have been standing there for some years now.

Officials, however, said all the structures would be demolished by September-end.

District collectors have been directed to demolish these structures immediately. The state government has released Rs 52.80 lakh for this purpose.

If local people want to move these structures, the district administration will make the necessary arrangements.

The officials are of the view that building a permanent structure on government land is in violation of the Orissa Prevention of Land Encroachment (OPLE) Act. Therefore, the claims of the temple authority had no validity.

In accordance with the terms and conditions of the ambitious NH project, the NHAI is going to rebuild the demolished temple at another site provided to them.

Interestingly, the 2001 census revealed that the state of Orissa has a higher numbers of places of worship than educational institutions.

While 1,03,350 houses are used as places of worship, only 83,119 houses accommodate educational institutions. Only 14,178 structures house hospitals and dispensaries.

The meeting found that the progress rate of NH-60 (Balasore-Laxmannath) was 72 per cent.

Over 94 per cent widening work of Bhadrak-Chandikhole stretch of NH-5 had been completed by July, while the progress of Khurda-Bhubaneswar stretch was 72.81 per cent. While the roads around the Bhadrak-Balasore stretch were about 60 per cent complete the Khurda-Sunakahala stretch was 79.32 per cent complete.