With the ‘summer beach' on the Cauvery bed turning out to be a big hit among city residents, the authorities have unveiled plans to organise yoga demonstrations and cultural programmes every evening.
“For the next 10 days, we will organise yoga demonstrations in the evenings on the river bed. We will also try and organise cultural programmes for the recreation of people visiting the spot,” said N.R.Sivapathi, Minister for School Education, Youth Welfare and Sports, speaking at the summer festival organised on the river bed here on Sunday.
The festival originally scheduled on the occasion of Chithira Pournami was interrupted by the heavy downpour on Saturday and was extended to Sunday.
The event turned out to be a huge draw this weekend, with hundreds of people thronging the river bed both on Saturday and Sunday, so much so that the new Cauvery bridge was choked with vehicles.
Encouraged by the public response, Mr.Sivapathi called upon people visiting the spot to shun plastics and ensure that the Cauvery river was not polluted on account of being thrown open for the public.
Mr.Sivapathi also announced that he was in talks with managements of schools and colleges in the city to throw open their grounds for morning walkers.
“We are requesting the institutions to open up their grounds between 5.30 and 7.15 in the mornings so that walkers in the respective areas could avoid walking on the roads,” the Minister said.
The abandoned Cauvery bridge, running parallel to the new bridge, would also be repaired and made fit for use by walkers.
Earlier, the big crowd was in for a visual and aural treat with ‘thappattam' presented by Selvam and troupe, a bharathanatyam performance by disciples of Revathi Muthuswamy and a vocal concert by Mahesh Kashyap and party.
Mr.Sivapathi also distributed the district level annual arts awards for 2009-10 and 2010-11 given away by the District Arts Society.
District Collector Jayashree Muralidharan, Mayor A.Jaya. MLAs T.P.Poonatchi, T.Indira Gandhi and Chandrasekaran were present.
