Neem tree located to sculpt Lord's idol ahead of Nabakalebara

Ahead of Lord Jagannath's 'Nabakalebara' festival, a Neem tree was located at a village near here to carve out the idol of Lord Sudarshan after a week-long effort by a special team, while search for holy log (daru) for the three deities would continue.
The 'Daru' for Lord Sudarshan was identified at Gadakuntunia village in Balakati block late last night, Chief Administrator of Shri Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) Suresh Chandra Mohapatra said today.
'Banajaga Dalapati' gave information about the identification of daru after which iron barricades were erected around the Neem tree on the bank of Prachi river to ensure that the tree is not damaged and the devotees would be able to have a 'darshan' from a safe distance, he said.

Mohapatra said he rushed to the village today along with senior police officers including Puri SP and the twin city Police Commissioner.
Information about the 'darus' of other deities, Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra and Devi Subhadra would be available in next few days, he said.
Banajaga Jatra is the journey for search of holy wood from Neem trees for preparing new idols of Lord Jagannath, Lord Balabhadra, Devi Subhadra and Lord Sudarshan. The last Nabakalebara had taken place in 1996.
Elaborate security arrangements have also been made as a large number of devotees thronged the site to have a glimpse of the holy Neem tree to be used in making the idol of Lord Sudarshan.

Besides barricading the area, necesary steps have been taken for effective crowd control and to prevent any untoward incident near the identified daru, said Police Commissioner of Bhubaneswar-Cuttack, R.P. Sharma.