A century after the British had filled the Jagamohan (assembly hall) of the Konark Sun Temple, a world heritage site, with sand to prevent the structure from collapsing in Odisha, the Archaeological Survey of India began the process of emptying the sand for repairing the vulnerable portion of the structure from Thursday.
A special puja was performed before commencing one of the most challenging tasks the ASI had ever undertaken. Sand evacuation begins after years of consultation, scientific research and scanning the structure with modern technologies.
“We have started the process of the removal of sand from Jagamohan from Thursday. It would take three years for the complete evacuation of sand from the structure,” said ASI Superintending Archaeologist (Bhubaneswar Circle) Arun Malik.
