All major roads leading to Puri to be four-laned

BHUBANESWAR: The State Government on Tuesday decided to widen all the major roads leading to Puri before the next ‘Nabakalebar’ festival of Lord Jagannath in 2015.  A high-level meeting chaired by Chief Secretary BK Patnaik decided to set up a special cell in the Works Department to monitor the timely completion of the road projects, which will be implemented at an estimated cost of ` 660 crore. According to an estimate, around 50 lakh devotees and tourists are likely to visit Puri during the grand festival. Roads from Birapratapur to Jankia, Gop to Balighai, Phulnakhara to Gop Road, Pipili to Khurda via Jatni and Harekrushnapur to Baliguali will be four-laned. It was decided at the meeting to develop parking lots for vehicles at Baliguali, Malatipur and Sipasarubali to accommodate a large number of vehicles. The Puri administration has been asked to set up temporary as well as permanent parking lots within the town to ease vehicular traffic. The Tourism Department was asked to make an assessment of the existing boarding facilities in and around Puri Town including dharmashalas and private guest houses jointly with the district administration and the temple administration. Earlier, the Government had decided to renovate the dharmashalas managed by the Lodging Housing Fund (LHF) and create additional lodging facility to accommodate more pilgrims during the Navakalebar festival. The previous review meeting held in May last year had also decided to construct more Yatri Nivases near the new bus terminus at Talabania. The District Collector was directed to facilitate the construction for the purpose by providing land to the Jagannath temple administration. The Chief Secretary also asked the district administration to draw up a plan well in advance to meet the exigencies.The Health Department was directed to set up intensive care units and trauma care centres in Puri district headquarters hospital and strengthen all the community health centres and public health centres along Konark, Puri and Bhubaneswar roads to meet exigencies. While a new sub-station with additional 50 MVA capacity has been planned at Smadar near Puri, the Energy Department was asked to give necessary instruction to the central electricity utility for replacing the overhead low transmission line on Badadanda with underground cabling. The DGP was asked to prepare security measures keeping the possible threat perception in mind. It was decided to install close circuit TVs (CCTVs) and watchtowers at strategic locations to monitor the movement of traffic and the tourists as well. A comprehensive movement plan will be chalked out for crowd management to avoid stampede and plans are afoot to put up mega screens at different locations on the Grand Road for watching the rituals of the car festival.