Chhath Begins as PMC Declares Patna Clean and Safe
Patna: October 27, 2006
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Chhath Begins
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Photo by Shashi Uttam |
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The four-day Chhath festival in Bihar was set in motion on Thursday with the traditional 'nahai-khai' ceremony, as thousands of devotees, mostly women, observing Chhath, arrived at various ghats in Patna and elsewhere in the state and took a dip in the Ganges and other rivers ignoring the bone-chilling temperature of the morning.
Heavy crowd was seen at Patna's Collectorate Ghat, Gai Ghat, Mahendru Ghat, Gandhi Ghat, and Patna College Ghat, where devotees started to arrive early Thursday morning to grab the most convenient spot and to avoid rush.
Chhath, during which the devotees worship both rising and setting sun, is considered Bihar's most revered festival that imposes some of the most rigorous requirements than any other Hindu festival.
On Friday, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar gave his best wishes to all Biharis observing Chhath while enunciating the importance of the festival. "Chhath is a test of one's will power and discipline and we are doing everything in our might to make the festival a great success by cleaning up the city, installing additional lighting on streets leading to the ghats, making the ghats safer, and committing extra security to avoid any unseemly situation," he said.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner of the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) Atul Prasad paid a visit to various ghats and expressed his satisfaction over the clean-up work.
"We had more than four hundred PMC staff and a dozen engineers to help them clean up the city to prepare for the Puja and I am happy to state that we have accomplished our goal in record time," Prasad said.
The government has also put government doctors and para-medical professionals on alert to deal with any untoward incident or accident. Ambulances will be at hand at all ghats and so will be the diving experts in case of any drowning, Bihar Civil Surgeon Dr. Chandra Bhushan Prasad Singh said.
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