Kakinada: On the eve of Vinayaka Chaturthi on September 5, a festive atmosphere has gripped the Godavari districts.
The significance of using clay idols has increased this year as many environmental organisations and also Ganesh Utsava Samithi held huge campaigns on using of clay idols and urged the people to protect environment.
Many organisations such as Praja Vidyalaya, Dharitri Foundation, and many school children distributed clay idols free of cost to the devotees for promoting the environment cause. Thousands of vendors were happy due to good marketing for their business such as selling of different variety of leaves and fruits, which are offered to Lord Ganesh.
However, the heavy rains in both the Godavari districts was a dampener for some time but later, their sales increased.
Many areas in Kakinada, Rajahmundry, Peddapuram, Amalapuram, Ramachandrapuram, Kovvuru, Tadepalligudem, Bhimavaram, Eluru and others were overflowing with devotees in the markets.
In Kakinada, Ganesh Utsava Samithi is making all arrangements for conducting the festival in a traditional manner. The Samithi is conducting the festival for past 27 years on the lines of Mumbai and Hyderabad.
All pandals will be brought under the Samithi during the immersion programme. This year, the Samithi made an effort to bring Kakinada rural mandals under the organisation to immerse idols at Lighthouse area to make the programme a success without any untoward incidents, said the Samithi President Duvvuri Subrahmanyam.
Samithi expected that nearly 1,200 pandals can be installed this year than last year's 900 pandals. He said that nearly 400 apartments have been incorporated to conduct the festival to reflect our culture.
Meanwhile, all the arrangements were made in well known temples such as Siddhi Vinayaka Temple in Ayinavilli, Lakshmi Ganapathi temple in Bikkavole, Sri Veera Venkata Satyanarayana Murthy temple at Annavaram and all other Lord Shiva temples.
