DEHRADUN: Controversy over the genuineness of gold-plating work in the Kedarnath temple's sanctum sanctorum -- undertaken last year by an anonymous Maharashtra-based donor -- has led to Uttarakhand tourism minister Satpal Maharaj ordering a “high-level probe”.Maharaj told TOI on Monday, “I've spoken to chief secretary SS Sandhu, Rudraprayag district magistrate Mayur Dixit and religious affairs secretary Harish Chand Semwal and directed them to conduct a high-level probe into the matter.

We want to know the truth and on the basis of the findings, further action will be taken.”'Six-member team inspected site'Prima facie, the allegations appear to be frivolous as the gold and copper were donated and the entire work was undertaken by the donor.

Therefore, any kind of embezzlement of funds or wrongdoing seems unlikely.

But since rumours are abounding, people trying to defame the Char Dham yatra need to be punished," he added.

This comes days after senior priest and vice-president of Char Dham Mahapanchayat, Santosh Trivedi, posted a video on social media in which he claimed that "the gold plates installed inside the temple were turning black and were in fact copper".It was followed by a fresh video that surfaced over the weekend in which a group of workers can be purportedly seen involved in what appears to be "applying gold polish on the plates".

Trivedi later claimed that this was a "Rs 125 crore fraud".

Following the controversy, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and some senior Congress leaders took to Twitter and other social media platforms to raise the issue.Trivedi told TOI on Monday, "The gold-plating has been shrouded in secrecy right from the beginning.

It's timing was also suspect since it was done just a day before the shrine's closure for winter and therefore, no one came to know what work has been done as the temple was shut for six months.

Initially, there were reports that it was 230 kg gold worth Rs 125 crore.

Now they are claiming it's 23kg gold.

Whatever the weight is, we need to know what happened to the gold and why is it turning to brass now?" Former Congress MLA from Kedarnath, Manoj Rawat, added that "it's important that the gold is properly authenticated." Terming the allegations "politically driven", the Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC), which manages the administration at Kedarnath and Badrinath, said in a statement that "the entire work of 23kg gold worth around Rs 14 crore and 1,001 kg copper plates worth Rs 29 lakh has been done by the donor who submitted the bills to the committee, vouching for its genuineness".BKTC chief Ajendra Ajay added that "a team of 19 workers, supervised by two ASI officials had transported 550 gold sheets to the shrine using 18 ponies last year." "Subsequently, a six-member team comprising experts from the Central Building Research Institute in Roorkee, IIT-Roorkee and the ASI inspected the site and the gold installation was carried out based on their recommendations." Ajay told news agency ANI on Monday that "a transparent layer of acrylic has been put on the gold bars in the sanctum sanctorum so that the gold polish does not get damaged", adding that the donor had sent a team of six artisans from Delhi to Kedarnath for carrying out the work.