‘Helicopters to shower flowers on kanwarias’

MEERUT/VARANASI: Helicopters will be used for showering flowers on lakhs of kanwarias who would pass through various cities to fetch Ganga water during the month of saawan this year.

Principal secretary (home) Arvind Kumar and DGP OP Singh held review meeting for preparations of ‘Kanwar Yatra’ here on Friday. Kumar said that security of Yatra would be supervised through helicopter, drones and CCTVs. Kumar said that kanwarias would be greeted with flowers showered on them from helicopter.

Officials of Meerut, Moradabad, and Saharanpur divisions attended the review meeting along with their counterparts from Haryana and Uttarakhand.

The officials held a similar meeting with administrative and police officials in Varanasi too.

The Yatra is scheduled to begin with the onset of the month of saawan from July 28 and lakhs of kanwarias from UP, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Delhi will fetch the Ganga water from Haridwar and other places of Uttarakhand to offer it to Lord Shiva in their native places.

During the meeting, both the officials directed the administrative and police officials to activate ‘kanwar samitis’ in their districts and to apprise them about the dos and don’ts. Kumar said their priority was to ensure an ‘accident free yatra’ because it had been experienced in the past that accidents caused major troubles.