Tarapith (Birbhum), Sept. 1: The Birbhum administration has installed a water-purifying machine to process the contaminated water of the Dwarka river in Tarapith, which pilgrims consider holy.

Around this time every year, lakhs of pilgrims congregate at Tarapith on the occasion of Kaushiki Amavasya and they take a holy dip in the river and drink its water. The three-day festival ended today.

The water-purifying machine has been supplied by the public heath engineering department and it churns out nearly 2.5 lakh pouches of drinking water a day.

Kaushiki Amavasya is observed at the Tarapith Kali temple. Around six lakh pilgrims from various parts of Bengal and neighbouring states such as Jharkhand and Bihar come to Tarapith every year for the event.

A police officer said the purifier had been installed to also address the problem of water scarcity during the three-day festival.

Taramoy Mukhopadhyay, the president of the Tara Mata Sevait Sangha, said: "Pilgrims who come to the Tarapith temple on the occasion of Kaushiki Amavasya drink the river water, believing it to be holy. The water has become dirty and contaminated. So, the administration has installed the purifying machine to supply safe and free drinking water to the pilgrims."