Uttarakhand CM sets deadline for Mahakumbh preparations amid credit war over Ganga status

All temporary works for Mahakumbh 2021, being held in the holy city of Haridwar in Uttarakhand will to be completed by Jan 31, 2021, while permanent works will be completed by Dec 31, 2020, chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat announced after a whirlwind tour of Haridwar on Thursday to review the preparations for the largest and longest religious gathering in the world which begins in January.

Expressing satisfaction over the current pace of works of permanent nature such as new bridges, Ganga ghats, flyovers, broadening work of national highways 58 and 72 and other related projects, Rawat said the deadline for Kumbh mela administration, for completion of temporary works, has been set as January 31.

“All the permanent nature works will get completed by December 31, while temporary works will get completed by January 31, early next year, for which, I have given directives to mela administration and nodal departments. We will be holding a grand kumbh fair and mela administration is ensuring time-bound completion of works and their good quality,” said Rawat.

Rawat’s inspection comes in the backdrop of Akhada Parishad representatives and many prominent saints expressing concern recently over the slow pace of Kumbh infrastructure works.

Some seers have also complained of delay in allocation of land to Akhadas for the four-month-long Kumbh stay in Bairagi camp area.

The chief minister also instructed for proper labelling of Mansa Devi and Chandi Devi shrine routes and ordered renovation of ashrams of saints and Akhadas before the Kumbh fair.

Rawat offered prayers to deity Ganga and performed rituals at the sanctum sanctorum of Brahamkumd at Har-Ki-Pauri.

Commenting on former Congress chief minister Harish Rawat’s silent protest in Haridwar, the CM alleged that the Congress leader was ‘double-faced’ and couldn’t be trusted even by his fellow Congressmen.

Citing his government’s decision to repeal the Harish Rawat government’s 2016 order labelling the stretch of Ganga at Har-Ki-Pauri as Ganga canal escape channel, Rawat said, “Our government is doing mass development works and also correcting the wrongdoings of previous Harish Rawat led Congress government,”.

Meanwhile, Harish Rawat hit back at the CM on the issue of nullification of the Har-Ki-Pauri escape channel order issued by his government in 2016 and claimed that it was only due to him that the BJP government was forced to repeal the notification.

“I accepted my government’s mistake of labelling Har-Ki-Pauri as an escape channel when it is very much part of the main Ganga. But for the past three and a half years, the BJP-led government and CM Trivendra Singh Rawat didn’t act. I went to Akhadas and Ganga Sabha representatives, raised this issue and now after such a long time, when Assembly election neared and local priests started an indefinite agitation at Har-Ki-Pauri, the BJP government nullified the said order,” said Rawat, who is staging a silent protest at Kissan ghat against alleged atrocities on farmers protesting at Delhi-NCR border.