Garbage dumped on grand road near Jagannath temple in Puri. Telegraph picture Lal Mohan Patnaik

Cuttack, May 18: A PIL filed in Orissa High Court has expressed apprehension that inadequate arrangements for the Nabakalebar ceremony of Lord Jagannath in 2015 would spell chaos and lead to collapse of civic amenities in Puri.

Filed by social activist Chittaranjan Mohanty, 64, a social activist, the PIL said the Nabakalebar was expected to attract 50 lakh pilgrims to Puri. Consequently, adequate provisions of drinking water, sanitation, sewers, traffic system, accommodation along with proper security arrangements for the visitors needed to be worked out in advance.

Mohanty has sought the court’s intervention to ensure proper preparations for Nabakalebar.

When the petition came up for hearing on Thursday, the government counsel said that a special plan for Nabakalebar 2015 was already under way. However, the division bench of Chief Justice A.K. Goel and Justice A.K. Rath adjourned the matter to after summer vacation for hearing along with responses on details on the plan chalked out by the state government.

“Accordingly, the court issued notices to the home secretary, chief administrator Puri Jagannath temple, collector of Puri and superintending archaeologist of Archaeological Survey of India,” petitioner counsel Kshirod Rout said.

“The court also directed the state government to submit the report of Justice P.K. Mohanty Commission, which was appointed to analyse, among others, the sequence of events and circumstances leading to a stampede at the Puri Jagannath Temple in which four persons were killed on November 4, 2006,” Rout said.

“The Justice P.K. Mohanty Commission, appointed on November 22, 2006, had submitted the final report on September 15, 2009. But the government is silent about it,” the petition said.

The petition also expressed apprehensions about security threat to the Puri Jagannath temple in view of suspicious videos on the 12th century shrine going viral on the Internet. The petitioner sought the court’s direction to the state government to safeguard and protect the historical monument by making special security arrangements.