Amaravati: The Guntur police are making elaborate arrangements for the smooth conduct of Krishna Pushkaralu to serve the devotees and to avoid untoward incidents.
The police are planning to install watchtowers in Pushkar ghats and establish a master control room at Tadepalli for round-the-clock monitoring of Pushkaralu. Special vans would be arranged to shift the devotees to the ghats, help centres will be started and CCTV cameras will be used in all ghats.
The Kanakdurga ghat, Dhyana Buddha ghat, old Amaravati ghat and Seethanagaram ghat are the main ghats for the Krishna Pushkaralu. The four ghats are easily reachable from Guntur and Vijayawada having good road and rail connectivity. During the 2004 Krishna Pushakaralu, there were nine Puskhar ghats in Seethanagaram but now the officials are merging all the nine ghats into one big ghat for the convenience of the public.
The police proposed watchtowers in the Seethanagaram ghat to monitor the devotees and helping them during emergency situations. As the residence of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu is situated very near to the Karakatta from Seethana-garam ghat, the police department felt watchtowers would be useful to identify anti-social elements and for tightening the CM’s security.
A higher official said that a watchtower would be established at 40-feet height and can cover 0.5 km of distance. Eight help centres will be started at Seethanagaram and adjacent places to serve the devotees and vehicles would be arranged to shift the senior citizens to the ghats.
Six parking places and same number of checkposts were proposed. The police department found that the devotees will visit 22 famous temples during 12 days of Pushkaralu, so are planning to provide strict security at these temples. The police department is planning to take services of the volunteers to serve the devotees at the ghats and to control the traffic.
The Guntur police led by urban SP Sarvasreshth Tripathi consulted the colleges to get services of 1,000 students as volunteers during Krishna Pushkaralu. The government has given approval for the proposal.
