All three chariots reached Gundicha temple in Puri: God will return to the main temple on 5 July

By Cross Talk India Team Last updated Jun 28, 2025

Saturday is the second day of the annual Jagannath Yatra in Puri, Odisha. The Rath Yatra started again at 10 am today. Devotees started pulling the three chariots.

At 11.20 am, the chariot of Lord Balabhadra and at 12.20 pm, the Darpadalan chariot of Goddess Subhadra and after them Nandighosh Rath of Lord Jagannath reached Gundicha Temple at 1.11 pm.

The distance of Gundicha temple from the main temple is 2.6 km away. Being more than 8 lakh devotees, it may take two to three hours more. God will stay in Gundicha temple for 9 days.

Puri has been raining light since morning. This has made good weather. Today the crowd is 10-20% less than yesterday, but even today many people became ill. In the previous day, 650 devotees have been reported to have deteriorated.

There were more than 1 million people in the Rath Yatra on Friday. Late in the evening, the health of the devotees deteriorated from 625 due to increasing pressure of the crowd around the chariot of Goddess Subhadra. According to the administration, 70 were admitted to the hospital. The condition of 9 of these is critical.

In the Jagannath Rath Yatra, the Puri district administration has installed Artificial Intelligence (AI) based CCTV cameras for security and traffic management. These cameras are helping in monitoring the travel route as well as crowd control. Additional Director General of Police (Traffic) Dayal Gangwar said that the safety of devotees is being ensured with the help of this technology.

Puri District Officer Siddharth Swain told ANI that the crowd of devotees on the journey route is quite high. All rituals are taking place on time. This time NDRF has also been deployed. Yesterday we have seized 6-7 illegal drones, because it is not allowed to fly drones over the Shri Jagannath Temple and Gundicha Temple.

Lord Balabhadra’s Taldhwaj has reached Gundicha Temple at 11.20 am and Goddess Subhadra’s Darpadalan chariot at 12.20 pm. Now only the journey of Nandighosh Rath of Lord Jagannath is going on.