The Jagannath Temple in Puri owns over 60,822 acres of land in Odisha and six other states, Odisha Law Minister Jagannath Saraka informed the assembly on Saturday.

In a written reply to a question from BJD member Prasanta Behera, the minister said a total of 60,426.943 acres of land in the name of Mahaprabhu Jagannath Bije, Srikhetra Puri, have been identified in 24 of the 30 districts of Odisha.

Of these, the Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) has received the final Record of Rights (RoR) over 38,061.892 acres of land, he said.

Similarly, 395.252 acres of land in six other states were identified in the name of Lord Jagannath, Mr Saraka said.

The minister said that the temple has already lodged 974 encroachment cases in different tehsils of the state to remove illegal encroachments.

The cases were filed as per the provision of the Shri Jagannath Temple Act, 1955, after the conduct of a proper inquiry by SJTA officials.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)