Puri Srimandir’s Flowers Will Be Grown With Support of National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI)

Bhubaneswar: The Lucknow-based CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI) will provide its expertise to grow flowers offered at Puri’s Jagannath temple.

A MoU was signed between the institute and the temple management for the purpose. The Lucknow-based NBRI will help the Sri Jagannath temple to grow special flowers such as lotus, Gandhraj and other aromatic plants needed for rituals of the deities.

The flowers will be grown in around 13 acres of the temple land.

The NBRI has taken up this project after taking up similar ventures near temples like Gorakhnath in Uttar Pradesh, Shirdi temple in Maharashtra, Kashi Vishwanath in Varanasi and Meenakshi temple in Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

According to the NBRI director Ajit Kumar Shasany, the NBRI will teach the Puri temple staff the techniques on how to cultivate aromatic plants and get full bloom in flowering plants. The NBRI has recently launched Jasmine cultivation at Puri temple land.

Under the project, the land and labour will be of the temple, while the NBRI will provide good quality genotype plants of Gandhraj, Jasmine and marigold to them.

The NBRI is also developing flower clusters in nearby villages from where temple authorities can also meet their present and future needs. Since lotus is also offered as part of the prayer, we will also help them grow ‘Namoh lotus’ at the Puri temple site.