Bhubaneswar/Berhampur: Around 1,000 senior citizens Thursday left for Tirupati and Vellore on a pilgrimage by a special train from Berhampur under the Baristha Nagarika Tirtha Yatra Yojana of the state government.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik flagged off the train through video conferencing from the state capital while tourism minister Ashok Chandra Panda, food supply and consumer welfare minister Surya Narayan Patro and planning and coordination minister Usha Devi were present at Berhampur railway station to see off the pilgrims.
According to reports, 109 senior citizens from Kalahandi district, 76 from Koraput, 83 from Nabarangpur, 57 from Rayagada, 45 from Kandhamal, 34 from Malkangiri, 35 from Nuapada, 23 from Gajapati, 30 from Boudh and 482 from Ganjam were part of the touring party and they were accompanied by 23 government officials. The pilgrims would return January 9, it was learnt.
Narahari Rout, a 60-year-old man from Kalahandi, couldn’t check his emotion and was in tears.
“I am travelling in train for the first time in my life that too on a visit to the famous places of pilgrimage of the country,” Rout said.
Another pilgrim Champa Dei Chhatria of Nabarangpur said she and her husband had planned such a tour in the past but couldn’t succeed due to financial constraint. She was happy for the fact that the government had facilitated the trip free of cost.
“I applied to become part of the trip after seeing an advertisement in a newspaper and got selected. I have never been on a pilgrimage and hope the journey would be successful,” said Sudam Barik of Boudh.
The state government had launched the programme in July 2016 to help the senior citizens visit the religious places across the country. The government has allocated `6.5 crore this year for the yojana against `5.7 crore last year.
Since its inception, around 4,000 pilgrims have already taken advantage of the scheme and visited Rameswaram, Madurai, Varanasi, Allahabad, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Ajmer and Puskar.
Official sources said the next train will leave for Siridi from Sambalpur in February next.
Under the scheme, while the state government provides entire expenses for the senior citizens in the age group of 60 to 70 belonging to BPL category, the senior citizens of APL category in the same age group will have to pay 50 per cent of the expenses and the senior citizens in the age group 70 and above in the APL category will have to pay 25 per cent.
PNN