Preparatory meeting for smooth conduct of Rath Yatra in Puri held

Bhubaneswar: A preparatory meeting for smooth conduct of Rath Yatra (Car Festival) at Puri was held at State Police Headquarters in Cuttack on Tuesday headed by Odisha’s Director General of Police (DGP) Dr. Rajendra Prasad Sharma.

A threadbare discussion was held on various aspects of Rath Yatra beginning form Snana Purnima to Niladribije. This year the world famous Rath Yatra falls on 14th July, 2018 and the initial ceremony Snana Purnima ritual will be held on 28th June.

In view of this, elaborate police arrangement will be made by State Police to make the festival incident free. There was detailed discussion on the issues relating to inland security, costal security, man power requirement, force requirement, material / gadget requirement and other logistics support in the meeting.

It was decided to convene another meeting with other agencies of State Government for a better co-ordination for smooth management of Rath Yatra. There was also elaborate discussion on traffic management and cordon management during the festival.

Special emphasis will be given for the safety and security of women during the festival. For this adequate number of women police will be deployed. Apart from this, adequate number of police in civil dress will be deployed on the day of Srigundicha and Bahuda Yatra.

More number of CCTV will be installed both side of the grand road and other strategic locations of Puri during the festival to have a better surveillance on the crowd movement.

Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India will be requested to spare two companies of Rapid Action Force (RAF) for deployment in the Rath Yatra. Three companies of OSAF (Odisha Swift Action Force) will be deployed on the Grand Road for effective crowd management.

It was also decided to have an inter-security agency co-ordination meeting shortly involving NSG to chalk out plan and programme for the festival. A mock drill will be carried out just before the festival involving all the security forces to make the arrangement error free.

All the branch heads and Senior Officers of State Police attended the meeting and presented their views for effective security management of this world famous festival.