Sri Durga Malleswara Swamyvarla Devasthanam is gearing up to organise Dasara in a grand manner this year with a budget of Rs.2.25 crore. The nine-day festival will be organised from September 28 to October 6.
Joint Collector Gaurav Uppal reviewed the arrangements at the coordination committee meeting here on Wednesday.
Temple alankara archaka Bandarinath Babu said that the presiding deity would not be adorned as Swarna kavachalamkrita Devi on the firstdDay as against usual practice as the festival is for nine days only this year. On the first day, the goddess would be decorated as Sri Bala Tripura Sundari and temple would be thrown open for public at 8 a.m., he said.
Temple Executive Officer M. Raghunath said that they were expecting a minimum crowd of 50,000 during the festival and more than 1.25 lakh on the sixth day—Moola nakshatram-- and about one lakh on Vijayadasami and third day-Mahalakshmi alankaram.
The temple was planning to prepare 16 lakh laddus as against last year's 11.16 lakh laddus to meet the demand during the festivities, he said.
Twelve prasadam counters, including seven at Kanakadurga Nagar, two each at Mallikarjuna maha mandapam and Jammidoddi and one atop yjr hill for physically handicapped, would be set up. The same number of ticket counters would be opened at the same places. Arrangements were being made for annadanam to 70,000 people at Sri Sringeri Sankara Mutt.
Cultural events
Cultural programmes would be organised at Mallikarjuna Mahamandapam. Special kumkum archana, sata chandi homam, kumari pooja, suhasini pooja etc. would be performed at the temple.
The temple was planning to arrange queue lines for Rs.100, Rs.200, Rs.50 tickets; Rs.1,000 ticket for all nine days per head and Rs.2,000 per couple for all nine days; Rs.250 per head for VIPs and VVIPs; Transportation for VVIP ticket holders would be arranged from Model Guest House, he said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police M. Ravindranath Babu, and Sub-Collector Venkat Rao were present at the review meeting with officials of Police, AP Transco, VMC, R&B, NHAI, RWS, Fire, temple and other departments.
