Mayapur, March 20: As a precautionary measure to contain the Coronavirus threat the Iskcon authorities have reduced the visiting time for the devotees and imposed a number of restrictions on entries to its temple premise in Mayapur from Thursday.
The measures include limited time for daily darshan of the deities and prohibition on entries to other spots inside the premise.
At least fifty thousand visitors including the devotees from across the globe regularly visit the Iskcon hub in Mayapur.
The Iskcon authorities announced that all the pilgrims will be allowed to enter the temple premise in the queue through a designated route after a mandatory scanning. The temple walls will be washed twice after each scheduled visit using soap and water, the Iskcon authorities announced.
At the same time, the Iskcon authorities have also put barricaded around the temple building to keep make a safe distance between visitors and community devotees who largely stay inside the cottages and housing complex in and around the premise.
Iskcon Mayapur’s head of communications Subroto Das said, “The alarming situation compelled us to put certain restrictions on the access of the visitors. From Thursday the darshan time for the visitors has been made limited from 10 AM to 1 PM and 5 PM to 7.30 PM. The visitors will not be allowed to make any access to other parts of the temple premise”.
“This is a precautionary measure in the wake of the alarming threat of the Covid 19”, said Das adding that all bookings for accommodations slated from March 21 have been cancelled. No new booking for the stay will be accepted until April 15 too.
The distribution of cooked food for the visitors has been replaced with packed dry ‘prasadam’ until the situation normalized.