Bhubaneswar: Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has written a letter to Minister of Culture Prahlad Singh Patel seeking his personal intervention in directing officials of the Archaeological Survey of India for undertaking restoration and relocation of a 500-year old temple submerged in Mahanadi River.
He wrote, ‘ A 500-year-old temple dedicated to Lord Gopinath, a form of Lord Vishnu, has re-emerged out of the Mahanadi River in Nayagarh District of Odisha. I understand that the non-profit organisation Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) have examined the temple and deemed it to be of major historic significance and in a good state of preservation’.
Further he said, ‘ It is learnt that the top of the submerged temple was discovered mid-river near Baideswar in the Padmabati Village near Nayagarh. The 55 to 60 feet submerged temple dates back to the late 15th or early 16th century, considering its construction style and materials used for the construction. It is theorized that the temple was submerged in 1933 following floods in the region’.
