HYDERABAD: With two more days left for Krishna Pushkarams slated to begin on Aug 12, AP and TS governments are vying with each other to win over the hearts of crores of devotees, who will take a holy dip in Krishna river in their respective states.
Besides relying on modern technology for smooth conduct of the mega event by setting up round-the-clock CCTV surveillance at crucial bathing ghats, the two Telugu-speaking states are competing with each other to utilise technology to provide information about the arrangements being made to devotees on their smart phones.
To provide information like exact distance of ghats from the location of devotees’ residence, availability of train and bus services, parking facilities, hotels, bathing ghats and famous temples near ghats, the two governments have come up with exclusive websites and mobile Apps.
While AP has already launched its website for Pushkarams, Wednesday was the turn of TS government to launch its portal to provide information on bathing ghats and other issues to the devotees.
The two governments are providing information about location and directions to ghats to the devotees on their smart phones with these websites and Apps. Details of ghats, nearest ATMs and bus stops are available on the sites.
“Our website and apps exclusively launched for Pushkarams will provide minute-to-minute information to devotees. We believe this will help us in averting stampede like situations at key bathing ghats,” Telangana endowments minister A Indrakaran Reddy said here, soon after launching the exclusive website.
According to him, the TS government even provided links to the exclusive Apps launched by the Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda police, separately, in these websites and Apps for facilitating the pilgrims to reach the security personnel, if they face any problems.
These user-friendly websites and Apps, will help devotees know about availability of priests and rooms in nearest hotels. It will also provide helpline numbers, details of hospitals, police stations.
Interestingly, the TDP too on Wednesday launched an exclusive app, ‘Krishnamma App’ to provide information to devotees.
After launching the App, party general secretary Nara Lokesh said, “Our App will provide detailed information with regard to each bathing ghat in AP and TS.”