Time for the jumbos to arrive in Mysuru for Dasara

Mysuru: The Dasara jumbos are checking into the c ity mid-August. If officials have their way, they will be here in a fortnight, allowing them to time to get acclimatized to the hustle and bustle of city life.
The Dasara high-power committee is meeting at Bengaluru on Friday, and will decide on the date to get the Dasara jumbos to the city and the scale of the celebrations.The officials have tentatively decided to get the first batch of the elephants on August 10.
After a team of foresters and vets selected the jumbos after visiting the elephant camps in Mysuru, Kodagu and Chamarajanagar districts, the district administration has initiated the process to get the elephants to the city. Priests have suggested August 10 as the ideal date to get the first batch of jumbos out of the woods, sources told The Times of India. It now depends on the clearance from the empowered committee headed by the CM. The first meeting of the panel will set the ball rolling for the festivities. The key decision will be on the scale of the celebrations, to help organizing officials plan accordingly.
Meanwhile, there has been a delay in sending the list of jumbos to the PCCF (wildlife) B J Hosmath for his approval as the DCF (wildlife) Kamala Karikalan was transferred in mid-July as the director of the Mysuru Zoo. The foresters hope to get the list cleared once the contours of the Dasara celebrations are clear at the empowered panel meeting later this week, a senior official said. The proposal is to get 15 elephants to the city and train them. But it will be decided by the PCCF, he said.
The foresters are planning to get Bheema, who is eyed as the next howdah elephant, once Arjuna and Abhimanyu retire. Along with Bheema, they are planning to get Ajay, and Mythili, currently housed in Dubare and train her in the rituals.New elephants are required to be trained to continue the tradition. "We need new female elephants as the veterans are over 60 years," the official explained. "Once the elephant is 65 years old, they retire from the job."