All set for final day of Ganga fest

Tirupati: Thousands of devotees from all over the district and also from neighbouring districts of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka will participate in the week-long local religious folk festival on Tuesday.

Relatives and friends of the Tirupati residents have reached pilgrim city one day in advance to take part in final day celebrations.

The folk festival being celebrated here is the biggest in Rayalaseema region. The Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT) officials also taking measures to maintain cleanliness and sanitation at temple premises and all the roads which are leading to temple are being spruced up.

MCT Commissioner V Vijaya Rama Raju has deputed additional sanitation staff for cleaning in and around the temple. The Jatara will commence on Tuesday after priests offer prayers. As per the custom, priests would make replica of goddess Gangamma with the clay and it will be installed in front of the temple on the final day of festival and they will perform special rituals throughout the day.

Another highlight of final day Jatara is devotees will walk around the temple by carrying thatched bamboo towers (Sapparalu) on their heads. At the same time, they will dance to the drumbeat. Devotees believe that goddess will save them from diseases and bad evils if they dance by carrying bamboo towers.

The police officials have beefed up security by drafting 300 police personnel. More than 50 CCTV cameras were installed, and temporary police control room was set up to watch the suspicious movements of anti-social elements through CCTVs.

Tirupati Urban SP KKN Anburajan is directly supervising the festival security. On the sixth day of Jatara, carrying earthen pots (Sunnapu Kundalu) on their heads, devotees offered prayers to goddess.

The temple trust has issued special entry darshan passes to the VIPs to have darshan of goddess Ganga in the early hours of Tuesday.