Silk City Berhampur readying for Durga Puja

BERHAMPUR: With Durga Puja drawing near, the Silk City is gearing up for the annual festival. The puja ambience has already set in as preparations are in full swing. While the pandals have already come up, construction of welcome gates have begun at various places in the city. Markets like Urban Bank Road are gearing up to decorate the entire area. As such there is no dearth of local artists, but for past some years there is huge demand for artists from Kolkata and Cuttack. The artists are busy giving finishing touches to the idols.Since the occasion provides an opportunity for family get-together, the floating population in the city is bound to increase during the Puja. To meet the situation, the administration has chalked out elaborate plans.For smooth conduct of the festival and to check crimes, a meeting was convened on September 11 which was chaired by Berhampur sub-collector Ajit Misra. Though the city will have around 50 puja pandals this time, but organisers of 34 puja committees along with tahasildar Satrughna Kar and SDPO Dhananjaya Jena attended. The meeting decided to streamline traffic near the puja pandals and deploy plainclothes policemen to check the criminal activities. It also decided to restrict use of mike and staging of cultural programmes after 10 pm near the pandals