KATHMANDU, JULY 20 Pashupati Area Development Trust has said it is prepared to allow devotees to visit Pashupatinath temple in the Nepali month of Shrawan. The temple has been closed since the government announced the nationwide lockdown in a bid to curb the spread of coronavirus since March 24. Today, the PADT partially opened the outer gate of Pashupatinath as it was the first Monday of the month of Shrawan. The four major doors of the temple were however closed and devotees could worship only from outside the temple.

The PADT claimed that around 5,000 to 6,000 people (mostly women) visited the temple premise. Looking at the peoples& eagerness to worship lord Shiva at Pashupati temple, one of the holiest Hindu pilgrimage sites, the PADT is mulling reopening the temple. Pradeep Dhakal, member secretary of PADT said, &We are prepared to reopen the temple if the government lifts the lockdown or allows people to visit the temple.& The PADT, in this context, has also formulated its own protocol for people to abide by in case the temple is reopened. &The protocol doesn&t allow devotees to touch the physical infrastructure nor human to human contact.

It also envisions constant cleaning and sanitising the premises,& Dhakal said.

He added that people will also be required to mandatorily maintain social distance. Ghanashyam Khatiwada, executive director of PADT, said although the protocol sounded hard there was no option for the authorities or for the people but to abide by the rules. Khatiwada informed that they had increased the frequency of cleaning the premise, while hand sanitizers and soaps would be made available in the area. PADT is also willing to open the temple on the occasion of the upcoming Teej festival, when nearly a million or more women visit the temple.

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A version of this article appears in e-paper on July 21, 2020, of The Himalayan Times. The post Pashupati all set to reopen for public appeared first on The Himalayan Times.