A total of 37 kg of gold was used to gold plate the walls of Kashi Vishvanath temple’s sanctum sanctorum, the temple administration said on Tuesday.
The walls of the sanctum sanctorum of the Kashi Vishvanath temple here has been gold plated.
A total of 37 kg of gold was used in completing the task of covering the walls with the precious metal, the temple administration said on Tuesday and added that it would now start the work of gold-plating the door frames of the temple’s sanctum sanctorum.
The door frames earlier were covered with silver which would be removed now before starting the gold-plating it, they said.
Varanasi Divisional Commissioner and chairman of the Kashi Visvanath Temple Board Deepak Agarwal said a devotee of Baba Vishvanath had expressed his desire to make a secret donation of the gold for the purpose.
He said the devotee’s name is being kept confidential owing to his condition for anonymity.
According to unconfirmed reports, a devotee belonging to southern India has donated the gold for the purpose and the donated metal weighs equal to the weight of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mother Heeraben.
Neither the temple administration nor the district administration has confirmed these reports.
The administration has not disclosed either how much gold was donated to the temple.
It merely said 37 kg of gold has been utilised to cover the walls of the sanctum santorum of the temple.
The chief executive officer of the temple, Sunil Kumar Verma, said a plan had been made for gold-plating the sanctum santorum many tears ago.
But at that time the specialists of the Banaras Hindu University had opined that the walls of the sanctum santorum might not be able to bear the weight of the metal and that’s why the work had been stopped.
A team of 10 skilled workers are engaged in gold-plating the sanctum sanctorum, he said.
