Title - District pads up for Shravani Mela

The Bhagalpur district administration is busy with the last leg of preparations for Shravani Mela, the month-long festival beginning Tuesday. District magistrate Prem Singh Meena on Sunday said renovation of ghats at Sultanganj would be over by the evening. Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi will inaugurate the Shravani Mela on the banks of the Ganga at Sultanganj on July 3 at 11am. Officials said work on the 700m-stretch of ghats at Sultanganj was going on. Three JCB machines have been engaged to make approach roads to the ghats for the kanwariyas (pilgrims). More than 8,000 sandbags have been used to construct makeshift stairs for the pilgrims at the ghats. Saffron-clad kanwariyas collect water from the Ganga at Sultanganj, around 28km west of Bhagalpur, and proceed for Lord Baidyanath Temple in Deoghar, Jharkhand. A junior engineer of the irrigation department at Sultanganj said: "We are keeping a constant watch on the river's water level because it has started to rise. Another lot of 20,000 sandbags has been kept ready to construct makeshift stairs in case the water level rises further." The Malda division (in Bengal) of Indian Railways has also geared up to provide facilities to the pilgrims. R.K. Gupta, divisional railway manager, Malda division, inspected Sultanganj railway station on Saturday. He asked officers to keep the station premises clean and arrange drinking water for the pilgrims. "For the first time this year, we will display maps of the Sultanganj township and other information related to the month-long festival at the railway station," Gupta added.