Pollution threat in Bashistha

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, July 10: Basistha Ashram has all along been facing the wrath of pollution since time immemorial. The Ashram is in the limelight again due to the Bol Bom (Shrabani festival) yatra.

 Thousands of devotees thronged Basistha Ashram on the occasion of Bol Bom yatra on Sunday last. As per tradition, devotees collect water from the river at Basistha in kalash (pots) and walk down to Sukreshwar ghat to pour the water on Shivalingam.

The administration has come up well maintaining the traffic. Vehicles are not allowed beyond the diversion on Basistha road that leads to the Ashram. The temple authorities have also set up offices on the premises of the ashram to address queries. Security personnel were also deployed for security reasons. But the administration and the temple authorities fell short in so far as cleanliness is concerned.

Not even a single dustbin was seen on the premises. Having no way out devotees had to discard empty chip packets, wrappers and ba peels all over the premises. There was also sense of carelessness on the part of the devotees. The single toilet facility set up one each for male and female are far from being used. People chose to urite in the open, instead. Moreover, the toilet meant for women was locked. Women devotees were clueless in this scerio.

Basistha Ashram is far from being smoke free. Marijua is openly sold and consumed by devotees on the Ashram premises.

“We are trying hard to make the premises pollution free. But it is hard to tackle a huge crowd sometimes. Even notices doesn’t work in such scerio,” one of the members of the temple authority said.