CHENNAI: With the once-in-40-years Aththi Varadar festival coming to a close in 10 days, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Wednesday ordered more facilities for devotees visiting Kancheepuram. As the festival concludes on August 17, local holidays have been declared for Kancheepuram town for three days - August 13, 14 and 16. The holidays are aimed at easing the movement of devotees to temple.
The idol of Aththi Varadar Perumal was taken out of the Anantha Saras pond within Devaraja Swami temple on June 28, after a gap of 40 years and the public have been allowed to have darshan from July 1. The 48-day event is coming to a close on August 17. Due to the large number of devotees visiting the temple, it has been a challenging task for the government to manage the crowd.
Chairing a high-level meeting at the secretariat on Wednesday to review the arrangements being made for the event, the CM said since more people are visiting Kancheepuram in vehicles, arrangements should be made to park these vehicles in school and college complexes and additional facilities should be made for devotees to take rest. He also announced that Kancheepuram municipality would be given a special fund to compensate the amount spent for making arrangements for this event.