Srirangam temple car festival to be held on Friday; extra safety measures being taken

Collector, Commissioner of Police inspect the route in temple town

 Additional safety measures had been taken for the Srirangam Sri Ranganathaswamy Chithirai car festival scheduled to be held on Friday to prevent any untoward incidents like the one in Thanjavur where 11 persons were electrocuted during a chariot procession on Thursday.

District Collector S. Sivarasu, along with the Commissioner of Police and Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department officials, inspected the temple car, the route on which it will be pulled and the safety measures put in place on the eve of the car festival.

The inspection was done to find out whether there were trees and electric wires along the route. Some trees had already been cut. The objective was to put in place extra safety measures for the festival this year to prevent any untoward incident, Mr. Sivarasu told reporters.

The Collector said he had a discussion with the Commissioner of Police G. Karthikeyan. He had asked officials of Tangedco, police, corporation, revenue and Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department to coordinate and conduct inspection along the route. 

Mr. Karthikeyan said additional police strength had been mobilised for the festival as a safety measure. Around 1,000 police personnel are to be deployed.

Police teams would be also deployed to check crime during the event.