Getting ready for Kanwar mela 2011

P.S. Chauhan

The state and the district administration have started gearing up for the mammoth Kanwar Teerth Yatra also called as Kanwar mela. The yatra, the biggest one in north India, formally begins on Guru Purnima of the month of Aashadh of the Hindu calendar which this years falls on July 15 and will reach its crescendo on July 29, the auspicious day of Shivratri.

Since the holding of the Kanwar mela is a Herculean task, the administration has already pulled up its socks for the smooth conduct of the mega cultural event. A special mela cell, headed by the SP (city), K.L. Shah, has been set up at the central control room (CCR) near Har Ki Pauri and the officials of the district civil and the police administration have held several rounds of interactive meetings with the representatives of Vyapar Mandal, Dharamshalas Association, the Hotels Association, the transport operators and the sant community to invite their suggestions and enlist their co-operation. Since large religious gatherings are soft targets for the terrorist outfits, the police are making full proof security arrangements. The SSP, Kewal Khurana has denied any specific report of the threat of terrorist attack during the Kanwar yatra. However, as per secret agencies, the yatra is vulnerable to terror threat. The SP (City) told Haridwar Plus that bomb disposal squads would be deployed at the sensitive points in the mela area and secret police personnel, dressed in saffron clothes, will mingle with the kawanrias to keep strict vigil on anti-social elements. The SP (Dehat), R.L. Sharma informed that divers of the army and the Jal Police would be deployed at the demarcated points to avert mishaps of drowning in the Ganga and the Ganga canal in the Mela area. Besides the security aspects, an important problem for the administration is setting up of the Kanwar bazaar where the kanwarias stay for a few days. Last year the bazaar was shifted from near Har-ki-pauri to Pant Dweep near the Haridwar-Dehradun national highway. Due to shifting of Kanwar bazaar to Pant Dweep the normal life in the city was not paralyzed. However, it created unending traffic jams on the national highway. This year the administration is contemplating to shift the bazaar to Bairagi camp which has ample space but is at some distance from the main city. The business community is opposing this move of the administration to shift the Kanwar bazaar to Bairagi camp. The state administration has called a top level inter-district and inter-state meeting of the civil and the police officials of the adjoining districts of Uttarakhand, UP, Delhi, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh in the first week of July