Rain upsets Gowri-Ganesha festival plans

Rain upsets Gowri-Ganesha festival plans
DH News Service, Bangalore:
Heavy rains that lashed the City in the last few days has upset plans of many associations celebrating Ganesha festival in an open space.


Unwilling to scale down the celebrations, associations are taking extra precautions to have the celebrations as usual.

Sri Vinayaka Mitra Mandali Trust, based in Jayanagar 8th block, has been celebrating the festival for the last 26 years. Last year, they celebrated silver jubilee programme by inviting singers like S P Balasubramanyam.
“There was no sign of heavy rains before the celebrations started. But on the D- Day, when SPB’s programme was scheduled heavy downpour disappointed music lovers,” said M V Kumar, trustee.

Extra pandal

Learning from the past experience, members of the trust have taken measures to meet the problems that may arise this year.

Kumar said “We are putting an extra pandal measuring 20 X 200 sq ft. The celebrations will be on for five days. Because of that we have to spend more money. The additional expense is around Rs 50,000 this time”, he said.
The same is the case with community celebrations of the festival in Kumara Park East.

Kumara Park East Youths Association President Charan said “We have been holding Ganesha celebrations for the last five years. Every time we spend a good amount of money on pandal. Last year for the pandal alone, we had spent Rs 1.5 lakh. This time, we have increased the amount by Rs 50,000 for a pandal measuring 80 X 120 sq ft. We are hopeful that rains will not affect our celebrations”.

Severe problems

Association which collected fair amount of money from residents can withstand extra burden due to rains. But those who celebrate in small localities with minimum budget face the severe problems. Youths of Nagarabavi 14th block, celebrate festival as one-day affair. They usually put up ordinary pandal.

“But this time we are putting up zinc sheets in place of ordinary pandal. This will cost additional expenditure of Rs 1,500 or Rs 2,000”, said S K Bhat, president of Nagarabavi Residents Association.

Associations organising celebrations in permanent pandals are not worried about the rains.

KSRTC’S SPECIAL BUSES TODAY

Bangalore, dhns: The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) will operate 300 special buses, on Tuesday, September 2, for the Gowri-Ganesha festival from the Kempegowda Bus Station (KBS).

While 300 special buses will operate exclusively from the KBS to Dharmasthala, Kukke Subramanya, Shimoga, Hassan, Davangere, Hubli, Belgaum, Bijapur, Raichur, Gulbarga, Bellary and other destinations of the State, 100 special buses, except Volvo will ply from the BMTC bus terminus at Shanthinagar towards Madurai, Kumbhakonam, Trichy, Chennai and Coimabatore. The State-run corporation will also operate 100 special buses from KBS on Sept 3.

To reduce traffic jams in and around the vicinity of KBS, special services of NWKRTC will operate from the Mysore Road satellite bus station and buses towards Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh (Advance Reservation) will operate from BMTC bus terminus in Shanthinagar.

Passengers can also book tickets through KSRTC counters in neighbouring states. Details of the services are available on the KSRTC website for information of travelling public.