Pahari Mandir set to welcome devotees amid scare

Reeling under the risk of landslide since last few years, the age-old Pahari Temple is yet again ready to take up extra load of thousand of devotees who specially gathers on every Monday of pious ‘Shravan’ month.

With widespread rainfall lashing the city since past few days, the danger for the devotees has doubled looking at reports about the fragile hillock. However, members of Pahari Mandir Vikash Mandir stated that elaborate arrangements have been made for the pilgrims ensuring both safety and comfort.

On the eve of first Monday DC Rai Mahimapat Ray who also happens to be the ex-officio member of the Samiti alaongwith Ranchi SDO, Anjali Yadav inspected the preparations done by the Samiti members. During the inspection, the DC asked the representatives there to strengthen the technical parts which include functioning of CCTV cameras, light and sound systems etc.

Ensuring better crowd management system to avert any untoward incident, a member of Pahari Mandir Vikash Samiti stated that all devotees will have to follow the queue system. Deployment of extra persons from different NGOs, members of RSS have been done to check that each pilgrim follows the queue system consistently.

A few volunteers have been deputed solely to ensure that overcrowd situation do not persist for long at any given point of time on hill top—where the main deity has been placed. Meanwhile, fencing of areas-where civil construction work has been done.

“In order to manage the footfall of the devotees, pilgrims will to do ‘Jalabhishek’ through Argha system. Besides decorating the shrine with garlands, installing lights, special attention on beefing up the security during the rush hours have ensured by the district administration and the members of the committee,” said, Pahari Mandir Vikash Samiti, PRO, Mukesh Agarwal. 

The security force will be deployed on the spot in two shifts – 2 AM to 10 AM and 10 AM to 5 PM while the CCTV cameras footage will be directly monitored from district control room. “The district administration has deployed extra security force for each Monday to control the crowd while keeping eyes on the miscreant activities. Over 22 CCTV cameras have been installed,” added Agarwal.

From cleanliness perspectives, the team of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) will be present on the crowded days –Sundays and Mondays for cleaning temple premises at a regular interval and will also ensure supply of drinking water, besides, discarding of the wastes generated from the temple in a stimulated time. Also, arrangements of three modular toilets have been done by RMC. As per Agarwal, the priest would start the ritual from 3:30 AM while the doors of the main temple would be opened up around 4:00 AM for the devotees.