COVID-19: Mahabodhi Temple reopens for general public after 5 months in Bihar’s Gaya

Only 10 people will be allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum of the temple at a time. The temple will remain open from 5 am to 9 pm on all days in the week.

Representational Image (Credits: PTI)

New Delhi: Bihar’s Mahabodhi Temple in Gaya reopened for the general public on Friday (August 27, 2021) after nearly five months. The world heritage site had been closed since April this year because of the deadly second wave of COVID-19 which forced the state government to impose a state-wide lockdown. 

Nangzey Dorjee, secretary of Bodhgaya Temple Management Committee (BTMC), said, the temple will remain open from 5 am to 9 pm on all days in the week. Dorjee has asked for cooperation from the devotees visiting the shrine.

He also added that only 10 people will be allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum of the temple at a time and there is no entry in the temple campus without the mask.

Meanwhile, as per the official data issued by the Union Health Ministry, there are 107 active cases of COVID-19 in the state, whereas 9,650 people have succumbed to the infection so far.

Earlier on August 25, the Bihar government had announced that shops, malls, religious places will open normally and cinema halls at 50 percent capacity seeking improvement in the COVID-19 situation in the state. 

Additionally, amid rising cases of COVID-19 in Kerala, the Bihar government has decided that people coming from the state will now have to produce negative RT-PCR reports.

"If any passenger is not carrying the RT-PCR negative report, we have the provision to send him to an isolation centre for 14 days," said an official of the Bihar health department.

"Besides Kerala, if any person coming from Maharashtra, he/she will have to undergo testing at the airports and railway stations before being allowed in the city," he said.

Complete lockdown in the state was imposed on May 5 after the state witnessed a surge in COVID infections. 

(With Agency inputs)