5 months ago
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A rather drizzle and surging assemblage of devotees did not hamper the festival temper successful the temple municipality of Tiruvannamalai connected Wednesday arsenic thousands of devotees chanted Lord Arunchaleshwara’s sanction during the day-long puja that culminated successful the lighting of the ‘Maha Deepam’ atop Arunachala Hills.
The Karthigai Deepam festival of Sri Arunachaleswarar Temple that began connected November 24 with the hoisting of a emblem culminated with the lighting of the ‘Maha Deepam’ astatine 6 p.m. connected Wednesday.
The time began with puja followed by lighting of the ‘Bharani Deepam’ astatine the temple astatine 4 a.m. It was attended by Minister for Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments P.K. Sekarbabu and Collector K. Tharpagaraj.
“I regularly sojourn the temple municipality particularly connected Maha Deepam day. Despite mild rain, we managed to witnesser the lighting of lamp atop the hills. Availability of buses for instrumentality journeys remains a challenge,” said K. Prabhu, a devotee.
The travel of visitors was dependable successful the municipality since Wednesday greeting with vehicles including cabs, cars and buses including authorities buses were stopped astir 2 kms from the temple.
Long region visitors made usage of 180 shuttle services operated by TNSTC from the impermanent autobus terminus to the 14-km Girivalam way and Arunachaleswarar Temple, astir 4 km away. Each commuter has to wage ₹10 per trip.
Around 120 wood unit were connected vigil to forestall devotees from climbing the hills that person astir 700 hectares of forests. A associated squad of wood officials and constabulary astatine slightest successful 13 spots connected the hills were besides deployed to guarantee information of Maha Deepam team, who airy the lamp atop the hills, and to forestall accidental wood fires.
Police monitored question of devotees, done 1,060 CCTV cameras including 303 cameras wrong temple premises. Police besides utilized Artificial Intelligence (AI) to forestall stampede-like situations. Children were tied wrist bands to guarantee their information during the festival.
