State gears up for Shrawani Mela with tent cities, info centres

Patna: Shrawani mela devotees visiting the Baba Garibnath temple in Muzaffarpur district will get several facilities this year, including free accommodation in tent cities, medical camps, clean drinking water, washrooms, uninterrupted power supply, kanwar stands made of bamboo, besides tourist information centres to assist them, said the tourism department.The Bihar tourism department is setting up these facilities for the devotees travelling from Pahleja ghat to Baba Garibnath temple in Muzaffarpur and Sultanganj to Dumra in Jharkhand. The facilities will be available for the devotees before the commencement of mela, a tourism department official said on Monday.Tourism secretary, Lokesh Kumar Singh, said comprehensive arrangements are being made for the Shrawani Mela, to be held between July 11 and Aug 9."A German hangar tent city, equipped with fans, coolers, chairs, tables and CCTV cameras, having a seating capacity for 500 people is being constructed at Pahleja. A temporary tourist information centre will be set up on the fair route that will have a seating capacity for 100 people and will be equipped with bamboo kanwar stands. The tourist information centre will have a public announcement system," Singh said.The secretary further said a waterproof German hangar tent city, with a seating capacity of 1,000 people, will be set up at the RDS College near Baba Garibnath temple in Muzaffarpur. Additionally, tent cities, with a seating capacity of 200 people each, will be built at Goraul, Bithouli and Turki. All tent cities will have appointed a tent city in charge, and their cellphone numbers, along with the helpline numbers of the control room to be set up in Patna with the contact numbers of local police administration, will be displayed there. Medical facilities will also be available at Pahleja tent city, Baba Garibnath temple tent city and the temporary tourist information centre."The district administration will also organise devotional music evenings ‘Bhajan sandhya' for the kanwariyas at Baba Garibnath temple tent city. Special attention will be paid on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays when the footfall of tourists is maximum," he added.