Principal Secretary (Home and Information) Sanjay Prasad directed the officers to provide high- level arrangements to the kanwariyas coming in the auspicious month of Shrawan, which will have an extra month this year, falling between July 4 to August 31 in which there will be eight Mondays when a large number of devotees are expected to visit Kashi Vishwanath temple. Expressing satisfaction over the preparations made so far, he directed the officers of Varanasi, Vindhyachal (Mirzapur) and Prayagraj divisions to ensure the best arrangements for the kanwariyas.
Presiding over a review meeting also attended by Director General of Police (DGP) Vijay Kumar and others at the Circuit House here on Saturday, Prasad asked the surrounding districts to prepare their plans according to Varanasi, and directed these districts to ensure intensive patrolling where there are highways. “There should be no negligence,” said the PS Home, directing the District Magistrate (DM) Sonbhadra to control the limit of vehicles carrying mining materials so that the kanwariyas do not face any kind of trouble.
Directing the DM Ballia, he said that special attention should be paid to check the overcrowding of the people at river ghats as well as on the boats. He directed all the officers to ensure complete compliance of all the instructions given by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. “There should be proper arrangements for emergency medical services and sufficient number of health camps on all the routes,” he said, adding that in view of cleanliness, the Municipal Corporations and Panchayat Raj department should take effective steps and ropes should be used along the rivers apart from deployment of divers to check the drowning incidents.
In the meeting, the DGP Vijay Kumar directed the Police department to issue traffic diversion plans wherever necessary and the same should be informed to the media apart from sharing the same with other adjoining districts as well. He also asked the police officers to create a network for taking live visuals of CCTV cameras and keep one route of NH-2 from Prayagraj to Banaras completely closed for kanwariyas. He said that traffic advisories should be issued well in advance, so that people can get to know about the same in order to avoid casualties under any circumstance.
The local police officers gave the detailed information regarding security preparations and traffic management to maintain peace in Kashi Vishwanath temple areas. They said that entry of heavy vehicles will be restricted in the city from Sunday night till Tuesday morning. Apart from proper security at sensitive places and Ganga ghats, as many as nine jetties have been installed in the river Ganga apart from making some major routes including Maidagin to Chowk, Godowlia to Rampura, Godowlia to Pandey Haveli and Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham Marg as no vehicle zones. Besides diversion of traffic from 11 points, barriers will be made at 11 places including Maidagin crossing, Kashipura, Dalmandi, Gurubagh, Lahurabir and Assi crossing. Divisional Commissioner (DC) Kaushal Raj Sharma said that in view of cleanliness, old Kashi areas have been declared as free plastic zone and the electricity department has been directed to take necessary action on the routes of kanwariyas, The DC Vindhyachal and ADG Zone assured the PS Home and DGP to make complete arrangement for successful Kavad Yatra. DM Varanasi S Rajalingam said that the entire route has been rehearsed in collaboration with the police and arrangements have also been made to cover the transformers at various places so that current does not enter the poles.