Lakhs of people performed yoga in rural and urban areas of the district on the occasion of International Yoga Day here on Wednesday. Apart from all the Ganga ghats, the main programme was organised in Shri Kashi Vishwanath Dham (corridor) in which Uttar Pradesh’s Minister of State for Ayush and Food Security (Independent Charge) Dayashankar Mishra ‘Dayalu’ was present as the chief guest.
On the occasion, Zila Panchayat Chairperson Poonam Maurya, Mayor Ashok Tiwari, MLA T Ram, Divisional Commissioner Kaushal Raj Sharma, District Magistrate S Rajalingam, Chief Development Officer Himanshu Nagpal and many other officers, employees and general public participated and performed yoga.
The Minister inaugurated the yoga programme by lighting the lamp. He read out the Prime Minister’s message after his address. He said that the world is being benefited by yoga. “Our heritage like Yoga and Ayurveda is paving the way for world welfare. Yoga practice prepares us to face the toughest challenges of modern life effectively while making us extremely strong mentally and physically,” he said.
“Yoga is such a trend, whose history is thousands of years old and it is one of the best means of our inner peace,” he said. Chief yoga instructor Manish Kumar Pandey, Dr Dhananjay Mishra, Shreya Singh and Dr Monika Mohinani also threw light on the importance of yoga. National Liaison Head of World Ayurveda Council Dr KK Dwivedi conducted the yoga practice session while the vote of thanks was proposed by Regional Ayurvedic and Unani Officer Dr Bhavna Dwivedi. Regional Unani Officer Dr Niaz Ahmed and others also performed yoga.
A total of 1,164 dignitaries and others from various institutions participated in the yoga programme at the corridor. Yoga programme was also organised at 30 main Ganga ghats in which a total of 8,321 persons performed yoga. Besides, yoga programmes were also organised in all 694 gram panchayats of the district in which a total of 48,580 persons participated.
A total of 3,430 persons participated in the yoga programmes held in all the eight development block premises.
A total of 1,560 persons participated in the yoga programmes in all the three tehsil headquarters.