Twenty-nine people died in a stampede at Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday, the first day of the Godavari Maha Pushkaram, a religious festival that takes place every 144 years. Local news reports blamed the tragedy on a lack of preparation, including inadequate policemen at the site, and Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s arrival at the ghat without warning.
The Godavari Pushkaram is celebrated every 12 years on the banks of the Godavari, from Trimbakeshwar to its mouth. Every 12 cycles, there is a Maha Pushkaram, as is taking place this year. The last Maha Pushkaram was in 1871.
The Andhra Pradesh government has been planning for the festival since January and has spent an estimated 1600 crore on preparing for it, well above an initial budget projection of Rs 336 crore.
But behind the big spending there also seem to be oversights that indicate how unprepared the government might actually have been.
Just a day before the festival began on July 14, the state government was still sanctioning funds for preparation of the Godavari Pushkaram. On July 13, it issued an order extending Rs 13.38 crore to provide amenities such as toilets, sheds for pilgrims to stay, parking arrangements and changing rooms. It is not clear if work had already begun for these amenities or if these funds were for commissioning new projects.
More baffling is an evident typo in the order that says, “Works shall be completed by end of July, 2015 before commencement of Godavari Pushakarams.” The Godavari Pushkaram, which started on July 14, will come to a close on July 25, five days before the order says it will be completed.
The orders
Scroll.in examined a series of orders issued by the government from June until the festival’s beginning. There is little confusion in them about the date of the Pushkaram, which suggests that the error in the July 13 order could have been an oversight.
However, that the government was still sanctioning and extending funds so close to the festival could indicate how unprepared it was to handle the estimated five crore pilgrims who, it is estimated, will throng to the banks of the Godavari river over the coming 10 days.
Several of these orders followed and confirmed decisions made in January, when the government first officially sanctioned Rs 336 crore for the preparations.
All through June, the state kept increasing sanctioned money and inviting tenders for work meant for the Pushkaram. But that work will likely not be finished before the festival ends on July 25.
On June 18, it sanctioned Rs 9.59 crore for the construction of a storm water drain between a railway shed and the Dowlaiswaram Saibaba Temple. In the same order, it invited tenders to construct this drain.
Signs of hurriedness
By the middle of June, the government was taking no chances. It sanctioned Rs 3.8 crore for 13 projects to build roads and community halls in and around Elamanchilli. However, it seemed to have no idea whether these projects were already underway. It simply stated that if the work had begun, these funds would not be sanctioned and that any misappropriation of these funds would be duly punished.
Some of the sanctions seemed excessive. On June 24, the government granted Rs 3.65 crore to improve a 7-kilometre stretch of road in West Godavari. The original estimate was Rs 2 crore.
By July, the hurriedness became apparent. On July 4, the government issued yet another order, this time giving sweeping sanction to provide central lighting, to build footpaths, construct a retaining wall, and build a platform for a Shiva idol. The entire amount sanctioned for these was Rs 12 crore.
The government has roped in filmmakers to produce and televise these events to the rest of the state. A committee was still scrutinising cost estimates for cultural programmes at the 12 designated sites for the Pushkaram on July 8. Two days later, the government sanctioned Rs 7.26 crore to the Director of Culture to conduct these. Of this, Rs 4.5 crore was intended for artists, including pandits.
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