Vedic hymns at Puri beach to welcome New Year

Puri, Dec 30 (UNI) More than a hundred scholars will recite Vedic hymns and devotional songs in a concert welcoming the sun on the new year's day at the golden beach here.

Chief of 'Barefoot', a leading NGO operating in the city, Jugabrata Kar along with several noted bhajan singers were expected to participate in the programme.

The poets body would be organising a midnight poetry composing function on the beach while others would be spending the night at the beach worshipping the sea and the sun God for a bright and successful year.

The Jagannath temple administration would launch free distribution of 'Mahaprasad' to the devotees from the coming year.

Yoga guru, Baba Ramdev, would grace the city by his maiden visit on January second.

He would be visiting the Sri Jagannath temple and Gajapati king Divyasingh Dev, sources said.

On January third Jagatguru Sankaracharya would initiate his ''Samudra Arati'' programme, which would continue every day, to appease the Sea God to bring peace to the world.

A week long ''Srikshetra Pustak mela'' had also been slated to be inaugurated on January third.

Anticipating huge visitors on the new year, the district administration had deployed 30 platoons of armed police, 500 home guards and 200 officers to monitor the crowd in and around the city.

Police force had been deployed in other tourist spots like Ramchandi, Harchandi, Konark, Chandrabhaga, Beleswar, Alarnath, Sakhigopal and Satpara along the chilika lake in view of the expected rush of visitors.

One way traffic system had been enforced along the Puri- Bhubaneswar-Konark route and a special traffic control unit would be set up at Pipili to regulate the traffic system.

The civic body apart from taking special drive to keep the city clean has engaged PENCODE, a fisherman NGO, to prevent drowning in the sea while sea surfing.

According to PENCODE Secretary Babula Prasad about 150 ''Nolia'' with life guards would be engaged on the three km long beach keeping close vigil on the people taking bath in the sea and will always be ready for rescue operations.

The Sri Jagannath temple administration had rescheduled its daily rituals to allow more devotees for darshan and for timely observance of rituals.

The entry of the devotes were being regulated through one way system from the main entrance at the Lion's gate.

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