post news network, Puri, July 17: The Puri sea beach Friday turned out to be a favourite hangout zone of the visitors and tourists who descended on the town to take part in the grand Rath Yatra festival, Saturday. The crowd was seen along the long stretches bordering the sea.
Most of the people, who have come from all over the country to pay their tribute to the Lord, thronged the sea beach to spend their leisure time during the morning and the evening. A medley of people comprising monks, elderly men and women, kids and devotees gathered by the side of the sea early in the morning. There was a surge in their numbers as the sun left the horizon and started its westward journey. As usual the huge crowd drew several vendors who tried to make the most of the growing number of people.
To ensure the safety of this sea of humanity on the Puri shore, the government meanwhile has made elaborate arrangements. The central control room, the tourist information office put up by the state tourism department and the sea life guards, keeping an eye on people along the long sea beach, seemed to work in tandem to manage the crowd.
“We have around 90 life guards keeping a vigil on the safety of the surfers. They are on their toes and have been helping the people who need it. However, unfortunately some surfers, keen to go deeper into the sea have hurt themselves. Till now, around 50 people have hurt themselves. Some of them have broken their bones, while some had suffered minor injuries,” said Sushant Kumar Sahoo, officer in-charge of the Sea Beach Disaster Response team. Apart from the government team private organisations are also working to ensure safety of the tourists.
“I have with me a set of cards, maps and tourist information booklets. With the help of these I have been trying to help the tourists approaching us with tourism-related information. Many tourists are getting benefited out of this,” said an official manning the stall put up by the tourism department.
However, at some fronts the administration seemed to have botched up. The highly talked about tourist police officials could not start their work from their camp on the sea beach as it was not inaugurated by the director general of police till afternoon. An inspector-rank official of the Puri police told Orissa POST that they were waiting for the inauguration of the tourist police camp by the DGP to take place. The camp would officially begin to function from 5pm after it was inaugurated, sources said. Moreover, some of the counters meant to provide information or first aid, or register the cases of lost and found, especially those along the beach stayed unmanned till late in the day.
Many people were seen confused by seeing only the camps, but no personnel inside those. Radhe Shyam, a 55-year-old from Varanasi said, “I came with five members of my family, but in the crowd, I lost contact with them and am having trouble in finding them. I can hear the blaring speaker calling out the names of the missing people, but I don’t know where the control room is or where I might register my complaint. On the sea beach there is a dearth of police personnel, which is otherwise rampant on the streets.”
