Gundicha temple being demolished in Cuttack on Wednesday. Pictures by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, May 15: The revenue administration today began demolition of the Gundicha temple that had come up illegally at Belleview on the Kathodi riverbed on the western fringes of the city.

The demolition of the main temple was carried out after the enforcement squad pulled down other smaller shrines within the Gundicha temple complex.

Official sources said the boundary wall, staircases and top portion of the main temple were razed to the ground today. It took two days to raze the Ram mandir that had come up inside the Gundicha temple complex.

“The demolition of unauthorised structures will be completed in the next two days. We have decided to put up signage stating that the particular land belongs to the irrigation department to prevent re-encroachment,” said S. Parida, sub-collector, Cuttack

“Due to machinery breakdown and deep foundation work, there were problems in completing the demolition of the concrete structure. The unfinished task was completed today,” said a senior official.

They said that both the Ram mandir and Santoshi maa mandir, apart from other smaller shrines, had come up within the complex in different phases.

The demolition of the Gundicha temple had faced resistance from different quarters. On Monday, a devotee had managed to climb atop the temple with two bottles of kerosene and threatened self-immolation.

However, officials of the Jagannath temple administration committee said the annual festival of rath yatra would be conducted in a grand manner despite demolition of the Gundicha temple.

“We have decided to organise the rath yatra as usual and the deities would be pulled in chariots to the Gundicha temple site, where we will set up a temporary structure for the annual journey of the deities,” said Pradip Singh, member of the temple committee.

According to Singh, they would also urge the state government to provide a suitable land for the re-construction of the Gundicha temple in the city.