DINDIGUL
The10-day summer festival and the two-day flower festival would commence in Kodaikanal on May 19, according to sources in the district administration.
Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami is expected to inaugurate the festival. The two festivals would be held at Bryant Park near the lake. He would also inaugurate much-awaited Rose Garden.
The Department of Tourism has arranged cultural programmes on all festival days in the Park. Track and field events, cycling and marathon and volleyball, football and hockey tournaments would be conducted on Moonjikkal ground.
Besides, rowing, catch a duck and fishing competition would also be held to attract tourists in Kodaikanal Lake.
Even before the commencement of summer festival, the season had picked up well in the last week of April. The crowd was uncontrollable during weekends. The traffic police had a tough time regulating traffic in the town and at tourists’ spots owing to paucity of parking lots within the town limit and at prime tourists’ locations. The number of vehicles reaching the hill was also on the rise.
The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (Division-IV) would operate additional services to Kodaikanal from Dindigul, Batlagundu, Tiruchi, Madurai, Karur, Theni and other southern districts. Special buses were being operated between tourists spots in Kodaikanal.
The Chief Minister is also expected inaugurate the Centre of Excellence, an Indo-Israel project developed on 5.8 hectares in Reddiyarchatram near Dindigul at a cost of ₹10.18 crore for offering sophisticated Israel technologies to farmers and augmenting vegetable production in the State adopting those advanced technologies.
The project was formally launched by the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on October 15, 2012.
