Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Acharya vows to develop Swarna river bank as tourist spot

Nature Worship: Offerings to the lifeline of Udupi





Udupi, September 7: Udupi District Incharge Minister Dr VS Acharya has announced that the government would develop the Swarna River bank, at the premises of Sheembra Ganapathi Temple, Perampali, as a tourist attraction by spending Rs 28-30 lakhs.

He was speaking after offering ‘Baagina’ to Swarna River on the auspicious occasion of Krishna Angaraka Chaturdashi here on Tuesday.

Dr Acharya said that Sheembra was one of the places where Sode Vadiraja Theertha Swamiji, one of the then Ashta Matadipathies, has taken a sacred dip.

This place gets significance as he had mentioned the same in ‘Theertha Prasanna’, a book on piligrimage.

The Minister promised to construct a ‘Snana Ghatta’ (bathing place), a dressing room for ladies, steps to reach the river etc within a year. Funds from the department of Minor Irrigation, Department of Toursim would be utilized for the purpose.

Minister recalled the starting of water supply to Udupi Municipality from the Swarna in 1972 and said that at present over 1.5 lakh people had been using over 6 billion gallons of drinking water from the river.

Minister’s wife Shantha V Acharya, MLA K Raghupathi Bhat, CMC Vice President Bharathi Chandrashekhar, UUDA Chairman B Sudhakar Shetty, Deputy Commissioner P Hemalatha, ZP CEO Rajashekhar, SP Praveen Pawar, TP Executive Officer D Manjunathiah were present. Hundreds of devotees also took the sacred bath in the river on this auspicious occasion.

(Photo: Janardan Kodavoor, Report: Coastal Digest)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice one. We need to promote the Backwaters as a tourist spot.