VIJAYAWADA: The trust board of Kanaka Durga temple has passed a resolution to strictly implement Covid-19 protocols during the ‘Bhavani Deeksha Viramana’, scheduled from Dec 25 to 29.
Around 5.5 lakh devotees took ‘deeksha’ this year which is about 35 per cent more than last year.
All Arjita sevas (special pujas) and VIP darshan would be stopped during the five days and protocol darshan will be provided on purchase of Rs 300 ticket.
The temple body has also requested APSRTC to run 230 special buses from various parts of the state to facilitate the movement of devotees. A coordination committee comprising of police, revenue, municipal and health wing authorities will monitor the proceedings and ensure that Covid protocols are strictly implemented and no inconvenience is caused to devotees.
“We are giving top priority to safety of devotees. Queue lines will be designed in such a way that there will be no congestion. We have urged devotees to get themselves vaccinated before coming to the temple. We noticed scarcity of ‘laddu prasadampadu’ during the Dussehra fest which resulted in congestion of devotees at prasadam counters. This time we will arrange around 15 laddu counters and stock 15 lakh laddus,” temple executive officer D Bramarambha said.
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh reported 181 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, taking the cumulative caseload to 20,74,217.
The toll increased to 14,457 as two more patients succumbed to the pandemic. As per data available till November-end, there are no active cases in nearly 13,800 village/ward secretariats out of the total 15,0001 secretariats. There is only one active case in 859 secretariats. No secretariat has more than 30 active infections each.
Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam are the only cities in the state to have more than 100 active cases.
