The Jagannath temple in Patiagarh on the city outskirts is going to be a busy place again tomorrow. The deities are set for their return journey after a nine-day sojourn a Gundicha temple, barely 500 metres from their abode.

In the erstwhile princely state of Patiagarh, rath yatra resumed in 2010 after a hiatus of almost eight decades. It is the oldest and most famed event in the city. Local residents said the Jagannath temple in the area dates back to 1265, and was built by King Ramachandra Dev because his wife Kumuda Devi wanted to worship the lord there.

“Ever since, the chariot festival became an annual feature of our village,” said a trust member of the Jagannath temple at Patia. However in April 1931, Patiagarh was taken over by the king of Kanika.

“But people here were unable to pay taxes to their new king. With no revenue coming in, the Kanika king stopped funding the rath yatra,” said Adaita Champati, former trustee of the Patia Jagannath temple.

Then in 2010, some youths decided to resume the rath yatra celebrations here and the Jagannath temple trust informed the endowment commission about this. The commission granted Rs 5.5 lakh for the event.

“The local residents were so enthusiastic that they gave huge donations and we had to spend only a small portion of the funds provided by the endowment commission,” said Mihir Kumar Rout, a local youth. The temple trust members said the rituals for the return journey on Friday would begin in the morning, with the chariot being tugged around 2.30pm after the pahandi.