Vijayawada: Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu launched the high-scale river festival Krishna Pushkaralu on Friday morning by taking a holy dip along with his family members at the Durga ghat near Prakasam barrage here. He also received blessings from Kanchi Seer Jayendra Saraswathi Swamiji. Later, the Chief Minister offered prayers to cows.
Addressing the gathering, the chief minister noted that rivers Godavari and Krishna are the lifeline for Andhra Pradesh. AP would be developed as a drought-free state with help from the two rivers. He appealed to the people to offer prayers to Krishna river for development of the state. “The linking of Godavari to Krishna will help supply water to farmers of the Krishna delta. The river-linking will help develop the state.”
Crowd movement was in evidence from the midnight of Thursday both at the railway station and the RTC bus stand, as people in lar-ge numbers flocked to the city for the holy dip in Krishna on the first day of the 12-day river festival. The young and the old — including se-ptuagenarian V. Rama Rao who reached the city from Rajahmundry along with his family members for the Kri-shna Pushkaralu — ex-pressed their satisfaction over the arrangements as also the sanitation level in the city.
Interestingly, youths were seen in large numbers on the first day of the Krishna Pushka-ralu despite the hot weather. Engineering student Ramesh of Machilipatnam, who reached the city along with his classmates, had a holy dip in Krishna, and noted that Pushkaralu gained importance after the linking of Krishna and Godavari rivers.
The police declared the main roads leading to various ghats as "no-vehicle zone" and allowed free flow of traffic in the city.
Meanwhile, residents of Vijayawada city and various associations have set up Shamianas to distribute Andhra foods, butter milk and drinking water to pilgrims, in addition to the arrangements made by the state government for supply of free food to the devotees.
People expressed happiness over the free and hygienic food supplies at various Pushkar nagars. Officials geared up to meet the challenge as the long weekend starting Saturday is likely to witness a surge in crowd flow for the Pushkaralu.
