40 cars to roll out in state capital

Forty chariots will roll across Bhubaneswar on Sunday.

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon), which hosts the biggest chariot festival in Bhubaneswar, have undertaken all possible measures to ensure that the festival passes off smoothly.

The procession will begin from the Iskcon temple at Nayapalli and proceed to the Iskcon Gundicha temple near DAV Public School, Unit-VIII.

Iskcon spokesperson Radhakanta Das said over one lakh devotees are expected to attend the festival. Officials said the stretch of NH-5 between Nayapalli Square and CRP Square would be blocked for vehicular movement when the chariots are pulled.

Rath yatra at Patia village, which used to be a princely estate during the British rule, will be one of the major attractions in the city. The festival, which had been stopped for 78 years, resumed in 2010.

Over 300 children of Old Town will take out an all-children rath yatra, which is a major crowd puller.

"We wanted to go to Puri, but were scared of the crowd. But we have no regrets. The joy in pulling the chariot here is as pure as it would have been there," said Sneha Patnaik, a school student.

Chariots will also be pulled in different schools, including the Shrivani Khetra of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences. More than 25,000 devotees gather here every year to pull the chariots.