The felling of
divinely ordained neem trees and shifting of wood (daru), which would be used
for making new idols of Lord Jagannath and siblings Lord Balabhadra and Devi
Subhadra at Puri, has heralded the Nabakalebar festival that will start in June
and likely see over five million pilgrims, devotees and tourists from across
India and the world. Yet, with less than a month to go for one of India’s largest
religious gatherings, Odisha appears to have failed woefully in prepping
infrastructure and facilities to absorb the pressure.
A majority of key
projects from roads, highways and railways to sprucing up of Puri town with
accommodation, food and shelter, health and sanitation facilities are still
lagging behind. While the Bhubaneswar-Puri National Highway which would be the
main entry to the pilgrim city is uncertain of completion within June 15, when
the festival would start, doubling of the rail line is certainly missing the
deadline. The government also appears to be clueless on providing accommodation
to the mammoth congregation at Puri during the festival as all its
proclamations of increasing hotel beds and establishing allied facilities like
bed and breakfast, tents, etc. are yet to be visible.
Nabakalebar falls once in more than a decade. This time almost
19 years after 1996, which is far too long a period to be ready with all
infrastructure and facilities. That Naveen Patnaik has been at the helm of
around 15 of those years is all the more binding on his government to have
ensured adequate and top class arrangements for the fest. UP chief minister
Akhilesh Yadav took only a couple of years to successfully host the world’s
largest religious congregation of Kumbh Mela, which attracted more than eight
crore people in 2013. He set up a massive temporary city laced with all basic
amenities to hi-tech facilities for pilgrims and visitors. The Patnaik
government had begun planning for Nabakalebar in 2011. Sadly, it has not only
failed to put up minimum infrastructure and instead now has begun to needlessly
shift the blame on Centre over non-release of funds. It is now upon the
government to devote all its time in ensuring completion of as many projects as
possible.
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