ANANTAPUR: The Srisailam hill temple witnessed huge crowds of devotees from Karnataka and Maharashtra to offer Sari and traditional offerings for Goddess Bramarambika, their “daughter” marking the Ugadi festival. Tens of thousands of devotees arrived by padayatra at the temple from distances as far as 400 km and by holding kavadis.
In view of the clashes between the Karnataka devotees and local traders during the previous Ugadi festival, Nandyal SP Raghuveer Reddy arranged special security for the festival season in Srisailam this time. The temple committee conducted meetings in Karnataka, with a plea to the devotees there to cooperate with temple functionaries during the Ugadi Festival.
Last year, Karnataka devotees had a clash with local traders and petty shopkeepers and several devotees had been injured.
Teams of CCS inspector Ramakrishna and Legal Metrology Inspector Anitha raided several shops in Srisailam and found the shop owners were not following the official guidelines that had been issued for them. The officials imposed penalties on traders and directed them to display boards carrying the prices of all their items in both Kannada and Hindi, to avoid clashes over rates.
The officials said 35 shops were found with irregularities and a total penalty of Rs 1.06 lakh was imposed on them by Tuesday night. The Nandyal SP said additional forces have been posted at all sensitive areas of Srisailam following the arrival of devotees from Karnataka and Maharashtra.
Srisailam temple executive officer S. Lavanna said necessary arrangements were made for devotees for the Ugadi at the agnigundam, the main point of obeisance for Karnataka devotees, on Tuesday night. A tradition of agnigundam a day before the Ugadi, late at night, was the main attraction for the Karnataka devotees. Expert swimmers were on service at the Patalganga.
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