PURI : CHAIRMAN of 5T VK Pandian on Monday visited the mega parking lot at Samang and interacted with devotees from Ganjam and Mayurbhanj who reached Puri by Jagannath Express bus service.
Pandian took feedback from the devotees about the bus service which was recently launched by the state government. He asked them to share their experience after visiting the Srimandir Parikrama project. He also sat down with the devotees to have lunch.
Later, the 5T chairman along with hundreds of devotees went to the Jagannath Ballav Pilgrim Centre through Sri Setu (trumpet bridge). On January 18, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launched the Jagannath Express bus service under the Location Accessible Multi-modal Initiative (LAccMI) to connect all district headquarters with Puri. As per the arrangements, the Jagannath Express buses will transport at least 10,000 devotees from various districts to Puri every day for darshan of the Trinity and the Srimandir Parikrama project.
Similarly, the mega parking lot at Samang has been built over an area of 43 acre at a cost of `67 crore. It has a capacity to accommodate 420 buses, 549 light four-wheelers, 258 auto-rickshaws and 1,059 two-wheelers.