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Civic bodies gear up for Chhath Puja
New Delhi:
New Delhi:
The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has reserved Rs 41.6 lakh for Chhath puja preparations around ghats where devotees pray to the sun God. The festival will be celebrated on Saturday.
“We have allocated Rs 40,000 to each Chhath samiti in our 104 wards. They will be used to repair the approach roads to the ghats on the Yamuna Riverbank, install lights in their vicinity, do anti-mosquito fogging, etc.,” Bhupinder Gupta, Standing Committee Chairperson of SDMC, said.
“Plus, the 40 water sprinkler tankers we have got to control dust pollution will be used to fill up our temporary Chhath ponds. Till last year, we had to purchase both tankers and water from the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) for this purpose. This time, we have some resources of our own at least,” Gupta said.
There are about 450 Chhatth ghats in SDMC’s jurisdiction and political leaders of the three Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led municipalities have already started making inspection rounds of the ghats to ensure there is no inconvenience to devotees on November 2 and 3.
The North Delhi Municipal Corporation mayor, Avtar Singh, visited the Bhalswa Lake and Haiderpur Canal on Wednesday. He said, “We have directed our sanitation staff to be on duty in uniform at all the ghats and garbage be removed.”
The East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) said they are deploying primary healthcare vans with doctors at 52 Chhath ghats in Shahdara North and Shahdara South zones. EDMC’s Standing Committee Chairperson Sandeep Kapoor said he visited the ghat at Geeta Colony on Wednesday.
About 30% of Delhi’s voter population is said to be Purvanchalis or hailing from Bihar or Eastern Uttar Pradesh. With the Delhi Assembly election due early next year, the BJP-led corporations are trying their best to stay in the community’s good books.
Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari had written to the three mayors on October 26, asking them to ensure all arrangements are made for Chhath puja at ghats.
