A child among the thousands who had gathered in front of the Gundicha temple in Puri, believed to be the birthplace of Lord Jagannath. The Lord, along with siblings Balabhadra and Subhadra, reached his “aunt’s” house on Tuesday evening. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

Puri, July 14: When pilgrims are in a daze, they leave their shoes behind.

The raths of Lord Jagannath and his siblings, Balabhadra and Subhadra, snaked their way to the Gundicha temple yesterday, followed by hundreds of thousands of devotees. Scattered on Grand Road were thousands of shoes that the faithful had either taken off or had slipped out of their feet as they jostled for space on the crowded path of the cars of faith.

The Puri Municipality, under fire for poor maintenance of the town’s sanitation with heaps of garbage lying unattended for days together, engaged three tractors and 80 sweepers to do away with the shoes.

“We have undertaken all possible measures to maintain hygiene during rath yatra. The shoes collected from Grand Road were dumped at the solid waste management site near Baliapanda. The garbage would be reduced to ashes,” said chairperson of Puri Municipality Santilata Pradhan.

“Besides regular cleaning and sweeping, the municipality has made some special arrangements so that visitors, especially those from abroad, do not go back with unpleasant memories of the city’s sanitation. All major and minor roads and lanes are being cleaned thrice daily instead of the regular practice of twice a day,” Pradhan said.

The municipality chief said barring stray incidents of overloaded drains, the civic authorities had taken all possible steps to make the pilgrims’ stay as pleasant as possible.

Pradhan came down heavily on the social service outfits that had put up makeshift kiosks to serve water and food packets to devotees.

“The social service outfits supply food material and water pouches to the devotees. The waste piles up on the roads. They don’t take any steps to clean up the mess,” she said.

Unlike previous years, the Puri Municipality had taken a much welcome step to stave off the bovines on Grand Road.

In the past, bulls have tormented tourists by dashing down the teeming crowd, often injuring many.

To save the devotees from bull attacks, the municipality authorities had, on the eve of the yatra, shifted stray bulls and cows to Kanjiaboda near Brahmagiri where the animals would be kept for nine days.

“We have made the city bull free. The animals are now in Kanjiaboda,” Pradhan said.

Hundreds of beggars and leprosy patients who used to sit on either side of Grand Road too have had a bad time on rath yatra. They were forced to leave the road for the day. “The beggars have been instructed not to sit along Grand Road on the days of rath yatra and bahuda yatra. However, there is no barrier on them to earn their livelihood on the arterial lanes,” Pradhan said.

The municipality authorities, along with the district police, had made massive arrangements on the sea shore to maintain law and order. Special squads have been pressed into service to rein in hooligans.

anti-social activities on the beach and food inspectors have been alerted to check adulteration of edible items that may create problems for the tourists, said Puri district collector Fakir Charan Satpathy.