Puri Rath Yatra: Our arrangements are devotee-oriented, SP Kanwar Vishal says

BHUBANESWAR: Director general of police Sunil Kumar Bansal on Saturday reviewed Rath Yatra arrangements and briefed his personnel on their duty. After the briefing session, Puri SP Kanwar Vishal Singh spoke to Debabrata Mohapatra on the arrangements for June 20 Rath Yatra.
Share with us the security arrangements
We are fully prepared with our force deployment plan. The DGP along with other senior officers have been reviewing our preparedness. About 180 platoons of force will be deployed. Three companies of Rapid Action Force have already arrived in Puri. CCTV cameras have been installed at strategic locations. We will also use drones for monitoring traffic, crowd density and beach security. A main control room along with several sub-control rooms have been set up. We will leave no stone unturned for a peaceful and incident-free Rath Yatra.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik recently stressed on safety and convenience of devotees
Our arrangements are fully devotee-oriented with special emphasis on the convenience of specially-abled and senior citizens. A dedicated green corridor would be created on the Grand Road for smooth movement of ambulances. We recently formed a brigade of local volunteers, namely Yuva Shakti, to assist us in rendering various public services to devotees during Rath Yatra. The Yuva Shakti volunteers, who did a remarkable job during the recent Debasnan Purnima, will help the elderly to negotiate the crowd and facilitate their darshan of the deities on the chariots. They will also be mobilised in streets, connecting Grand Road where the chariots would be tugged by devotees, to regulate crowd movement.
Any safety measures in beach?
Since lakhs of tourists would throng the beach after having darshan of the deities, we will deploy adequate personnel on the beach on the stretch from Penthakota to Sterling. Regular patrolling would be conducted by police vans in evening and night. To prevent drowning incidents, adequate lifeguards have been mobilised. We appeal to tourists not to venture into the sea. Meetings were already held with hoteliers, who were advised to take safety measures for tourists in their hotels. Our personnel have been visiting hotels for inspection.
Traffic would be a big issue
We will issue the vehicle mobility plan, their route charts and parking lots on Sunday. The mobility details would be shared on our social media handles for wider dissemination. Police personnel on roads would guide the visitors to parking lots. Our motto will be minimum restriction, only regulations. We welcome all devotees.