Aditya Birla to extend support for the development of the Gandhi Mandir

The Aditya Birla group desires to extend cooperation for the over all development of the Gandhi Mandir located at Bhatra, ourskirt of the Sambalpur town. This is only temple of its kind where a bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi has been installed in the center place of the temple and people come for worship like God.

The general manager (special project) Bharat Parikh visited the temple on Thursday and revealed company’s interest to become a part of the development of the temple. “Aditya Birla group is interested to be a part of the temple and company has decided to extend all cooperation to its managing committee to make the temple more highlighted in international level”, Bharat Parikh told while taking with the media person on Thursday evening.

According to him, he got information about the temple from a news article published in the ‘Times of India’ in its Mumbai edition and from it he came to know about the financial difficulties of the managing committee to maintain the temple smoothly . “Money will not be a problem for the temple after company's decision to become a part of the Temple. We will develop a long term planning for the over all development of the temple. But initially we develop the temple and its surrounding to attract more number of visitors. I have also suggested the management committee to start maintaining a list of life member of the temple with a contribution of Rs. 1000/-“, Parikh added.

“Our intension is to give a complete idea about Mahatma Gandhi to the younger generation. Many youths do not know much about him. So we want to develop a library in side the temple where youth gets documents regarding the lifestyle of the Gandhi”, Parikh told.

Sources said, the temple was built in 1974 at Bhatra outskirt of Sambalpur town with the active participation of former legislature of Rairakhol constituency Abhimanyu Kumar. A statue of Mahatma Gandhi was installed inside the temple. Every day people assemble inside the temple for morning and evening prayer. Special programmes are organized on 15^th August (Independence Day), January 26^th (republic day) 2^nd Oct (Gandhi Jayanti) and January 30^th (death anniversary of Gandhiji). But presently the managing committee is facing severe financial crunch to run the day to day activities and annual maintenance of the temple because of no regular income source.

“I am happy that company like Aditya Birla group has started taking interest on the development of the temple. we expect a speedy development of the temple with the aegis of the company and hopefully it will make the temple more highlighted both in national and international level ”, the president of the managing committee Pramod Kumar told.