Ujjain : The CSFOC meeting witnessed serious infighting over issue of providing chilled water to the devotees during the Simhastha mela.
Where one group supported the decision of mela authorities over supplying chilled water while another opposed it. The opposing group including that of Kishore Khandelwal and Jagdish Agrawal said, “If the municipal corporation is claiming pure water in their supply then what is the need of RO purified and chilled water, while the rest supported the decision of mela authorities.” They also said the temperature difference of water being provided by administration and akharas along with other institutes will harm the health in blazing summer. Another concern by the members was for the use of earthen pots for water supply, as it is favoured by villagers.
Mela officer Avinash Lavania said, “The decision was taken to provide exemplary services to visitors and water temperature can be controlled in almost all the devices being installed in mela area”. The organisations working have been instructed to provide both chilled and cooled water from earthen pots. In fact the reason behind bickering was different. Sources inside the mela office said the whole trouble came out after the ‘Vaishya Mahasammelan’ which first had announced installation of 1000 RO-Chilled Pyaus in the mela area, but due to paucity of financial support by the community men, led to dwindling. Now the community has come down to 271 Pyaus. It was confirmed Ujjain Development Authority chairman Jagdish Agrawal in the meeting that machines are costly and communities are facing trouble in aggregating, so earthen pots must be included.
