Chhath: Devotees offer Puja at ghats as Lake stays out of bounds

Kolkata: Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) in coordination with Kolkata Police achieved 100 per cent success in implementing the order of National Green Tribunal by preventing observance of Chhath Puja rituals at Rabindra Sarobar and Subhas Sarobar.

About 7 permanent ghats and 32 temporary ghats in the city that were earmarked for performing Chhath Puja were well accepted by the devotees.

"We will increase the number of permanent ghats and our plan is to gradually create infrastructure for more such ghats so that we can do away with temporary ghats," a senior KMDA official said.

State Urban Development minister Chandrima Bhattacharjee who is also the chairman of KMDA visited the permanent ghats at Nonadanga and Patuli and some other ghats too in presence of CEO KMDA and other senior officials.

Javed Ahmed Khan, Minister for Disaster Management accompanied Bhattacharjee and her Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority team.

"We had kept arrangements of vehicles at Rabindra Sarobar so that if any devotees turned up there we can transport them quickly to a nearby place for observing Chhath Puja. But no one came and there were also no attempts of forcible entry. In Subhas Sarovar, two persons tried to climb over the barricade but were thwarted by the police. This proves that awareness about keeping the two waterbodies out of bounds to prevent pollution as per directions of the green bench has yielded fruitful results," the KMDA official added.

The deployment of police and barricading and similar arrangements at both the waterbodies will be in place till 6 pm on Thursday with the Puja rituals to be observed again on early Thursday

morning.

State Power minister Aroop Biswas who happens to be the MLA of Tollyganj visited a number of ghats in his constituency while state Agriculture minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhayay also visited a number of ghats in his Khardah constituency.

The seven permanent ghats for the puja are located in two places - six at two locations in Nonadanga near Fortis Hospital off Kasba – EM Bypass connector and another adjacent to Satyajit Roy Park in Patuli.