Deepam festival - gold and silver coins offered for devotees with jute bags
Posted on: 29/Nov/2017 3:52:48 PM
The district administration of Thiruvannamalai has informed that it will conduct a lucky draw and offer silver and gold coins prizes for the devotees who bring jute bags with them avoiding plastic bags thus ensuring less pollution in the temple/city environments.
The karthigai deepam festival is celebrated in a grand manner every year at the famous Thiruvannamalai temple of Lord Arunachaleswarar. Lakhs of devotees from other districts, states, and other countries, visit on this occasion to have a darshan of the deepam and lord Arinachaleswara and his consort Unnamulai Amman and all the 5 deities are collectively known as Panchmurthys.
It is a general routine for the visiting devotees to use plastic bags while buying the Pooja material, eatable, toys, etc. while returning to their places. These discarded plastic bags are strewn all over the Girivalam route as well as the streets/roads of the city of Thiruvannamalai.
In order to prevent/avoid the accumulation of the pollution-causing plastic waste, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board and the Thiruvannamalai District administration have joined hands to encourage the visiting devotees to use jute bags instead of the plastic.
Accordingly, they have planned to conduct a lucky draw for the devotees who bring jute bags and offer gold and silver coins as the lucky draw prizes.
As a part of this drive, 3 plastic prevention centres are to be set up in 3 places in Thiruvannamalai city – opposite Grace Hospital on Tindivanam Road, Kuberalingam, and Anna entrance Arch,
The public and the devotees can show the jute bags carried by them in the above 3 places and have the seal fixed on them and get the ticket with serialized numbers meant for the lucky draw.
Computerised lucky draw
The computerised ‘lucky draw’ will be conducted at the end of every hour for the tickets collected/issued over this hour, The lucky winners will be given a prize of a 10-gram silver coin.
In a second part, the chits collected over 8 hours will be included in another computerised lucky draw conducted 3 times every 8 hours and the winner will receive a 2-gram gold coin.
The lucky draw proceedings will be announced in the speakers installed (by the police department) in the ‘girivalam’ route detailing the winning numbers
The winners can submit their prize winning tickets in the office of the General Health Section in the Thiruvannamalai Central Bus Station and get the gold or silver coins.
The 24-hours issue of lucky draw tickets
Starting from 6.00 AM on 2nd December and ending at 6.00 AM on 3rd December, the lucky draw chits will be issued for the entire 24 hours. So, 24 silver coins of 10 grams each for the hourly lucky draw and 3 gold coins of 2 grams each for the every 8-hours lucky draw will be given as prizes.
Thiruvannamalai district collector, K. S. Kandasamy, has appealed that with the above incentive-based initiative, the devotees visiting Thiruvannamalai from the other districts of Tamil Nadu the other states, and other countries are strongly advised to carry jute bags with them and avail the lucky draw opportunity.
