Always a hurry-burry affair

Mulugu: It's a repeat of sorts. Although the dates of the biennial Sammakka Saralamma Jatara at Medaram, said to be Asia's biggest Adivasi carnival, were out long ago, the State government which dilly dallied all these days has finally made its first move to stretch its eyes on arrangements. With little under five months to go for the Jatara and the government is yet to earmark funds for it, the administration has a task at hand to accomplish the desired results. It's always said that works begin late and continue till the 11th hour for obvious reasons - not much focus and scrutiny on the quality of work.

On April 25 this year, the Medaram priests announced the dates that the Jatara will be held from February 16 to 19. Then the priests expressed hopes that the government had enough time to ensure all arrangements in place for the Jatara that likely to attract more than one crore devotees, mostly non-tribals far across from the country and abroad.

It's learnt that soon after the dates were announced for the Jatara, Mulugu District Collector Krishna Aditya directed the officials to prepare proposals so that they could be sent to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for his approval. It's necessary considering the bureaucratic hassles from CM's peshi to district administration.

Despite this, the administration is still grappling with the proposals. During the last biennial Jatara also, the government took its own time before earmarking Rs 75 crore for the arrangements. Based on this fact, it's going to be a repeat of the last Jatara where the authorities were busy ensuring the facilities for the devotees till the last hour.

Although there was a long-pending demand for permanent facilities at Medaram, the rulers have always preferred makeshift arrangements for obvious reasons. The authorities who spend crores of rupees for arranging temporary toilets never focus on permanent measures.

Traffic management is one of the major issues. With the roads leading to Medaram are narrow, there was a necessity to take up road expansion works of Tadvai-Medaram, Bhupalpally-Medaram and Kataram-Medaram.

"Ahead of every Jatara, it's conspicuous that the government starts from scratch. Over the years, the government had spent hundreds of crores of rupees, but barring a few things it's hard to find permanent amenities at Medaram after the Jatara," B Satyanarayana, a retired teacher and an ardent devotee of Sammakka-Saralamma deities who regularly visits the Jatara, told The Hans India.

Against this backdrop, Minister for Tribal Welfare Satyavathi Rathod, MLC Pochampally Srinivas Reddy and District Collector Krishna Aditya on Tuesday held a review meeting where they dwelt at length about the arrangements.