Nashik: Rain dampens festive mood in city

NASHIK: Parts of the Nashik city and rural areas received light to moderate rainfall for the second consecutive day on Saturday, which led to the drop in the footfall of devotees at some of the temples.
The management of Kalika Temple, which attracts a large number of devotees during Navaratra, said a section of people were not able to visit the temple despite making online bookings for darshan due to rain.
Keshav Anna Patil, the trustee of the Kalika Temple, said when it rains, the devotees can’t visit the temple in the allotted time slot and they are also not permitted to take darshan in other slots since it already has the required number of devotees to be allowed.
This has been happening for the past two days, he said.
Gajanan Chingre, the trustee of the Renuka Mata Temple in Bhagur, said the rain is stopping a large number of devotees from coming to the temple. Even though devotees take the e-pass, they are not turning up for the darshan. The drop in the footfall is between 40% to 50% than what we were expecting. We hope that it will return to normalcy once the skies become clear.
Some vendors said the rain has impacted their business. Nashik skies remained overcast on Saturday along with rain in some parts of the city.
Some vendors said customers decide beforehand what they want to buy during the festival. So even if it rains, the plan of buying articles is only postponed and not cancelled. Hence, customers will turn up in a day or two.
Meanwhile, due to heavy rain in the catchment areas of Gangapur dam, the water resources department has released water at 1,000 cusec.