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| The pandal at Uddarbond. Telegraph picture |
Silchar, Oct. 6: Durga Puja is just four days away and the question that most of the households in Barak valley districts are asking is if the weather would play spoilsport during the festival.
For the past three days, the sky has been overcast with occasional showers in the valley.
According to an estimate, the number of community Pujas in the three Barak districts is around 2,500.
This year, a community Puja in Uddarbond town in Cachar district, 10km from this town, will build a 120-feet tall pandal, modelled on the Iskcon temple in London.
The Puja is sponsored by the 29-year-old Kalibari Road Sarbajanin Puja Committee.
With a budget of Rs 40 lakh, the committee will set up a gorgeous idol, three main gates leading to the Puja pandal and a waterbody where an electronically modulated artificial crocodile will swim, and a lion with an artificial roar will be placed in a nearby lawn. The idol will be decorated with 27 types of different conch shells.
Another famous Puja of Hailakandi town being organised by the Hailakandi Yuba Samity for the past 71 years is also poised to be the toast of many Puja revellers. The main pandal is modelled on the courtyard of the palace of King Vikramaditya, the Gupta dynasty scion.
The 66-year-old Puja by the Tarapur Sarbajanin Puja Committee in the rice mill compound in Tarapur here is also poised to attract several people. It will encapsulate, using motifs and decor, the bygone days of the feudal zamindars, in its Puja pandal atmosphere.
Another Puja to be organised by the All Medical Sales People Durga Puja Committee in this town’s Hailakandi Road is now all set to draw thousands of people by its decorative idol of the goddess, which will be built using thousands of pearls collected from the seabed in Puri and Digha.
Directives
The Cachar district administration and police have separately issued a list of dos and don’ts to Puja organisers in the district in a bid to maintain law and order.
Cachar superintendent of police Diganta Bora today made it clear that full-scale police force would be deployed during the five days of the Pujas.
He also said all the sound systems in the pandals should be switched off at 10pm.
In Silchar town, more than 255 community Puja committees have registered themselves with the police till today.
Cachar district magistrate G.M. Hazarika has also issued restrictive measures under Section 144 CrPC during the Pujas. The order prohibits pillion-riding on two-wheelers except the elderly and children. It is mandatory for Puja committees to arrange for the first aid facilities and volunteers in pandals.