Mukteswar temple and (right) Lingaraj temple. Telegraph pictures

Bhubaneswar, July 1: Chief secretary Bijay Kumar Patnaik yesterday visited a number of prominent monuments at Old Town to ensure that encroachments were removed and proper drainage facilities provided.

Since temples such as Baital and Megheswar suffer from acute waterlogging following heavy rain, the chief secretary asked engineers of Bhubaneswar Development Authority, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, public works department and the water resources department to fix the problem.

The drainage issue in Megheswar is complicated because the outlet falling outside the civic limits.

Moreover, the drainage system, which earlier existed with that of the Baital or Tinmundia temple, can no longer be seen with uncontrolled urbanisation and encroachments.

Patnaik asked the officials to ensure that encroachments were removed with immediate effect and drainage outlets were ensured so that tourist would not have to wade through water to enter any temple.

Already, the front of the Lingaraj Temple has been developed into a small park by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage and the tourism department and there is another plan to have a wide road by the public works department till Kotitirtheswar temple.

The chief secretary asked the persons concerned to ensure timely completion of the projects and also to have adequate international-standard amenity centres to cater to the needs of international tourists.

Director, tourism, Susil Das said: “While the chief secretary asked all the departments to do their bit, he visited Rajarani, Parsurameswar, Bhimeswar, Aisaneswar, Papanasini Tank, Mukteswar and Lingaraj temple to ask for dedicated parking lots.”

Superintending archaeologist of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Bhubaneswar Circle, A.K. Patel, said: “A high-level technical committee comprising engineers and archaeologists should be formed to ensure permanent solution to the redressal of the waterlogging problem, said Patnaik.”

Municipal commissioner Vishal Kumar Dev said the chief secretary also asked the civic body to ensure better sanitation near the important heritage sites and to cover them under the special cleaning operations.

Sources also said the BDA officials were asked to ensure planned urbanisation near the monuments so that structures polluting the skyline near the temple do not come up in the future.

In order to ensure better facilities for visitors to the monuments, he also suggested the ASI authorities to provide parking space since in most cases, road widening projects near the monuments has eaten up every all the available land that could have been used for parking.