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Tribal students make merry

Special Correspondent

Film personalities and eminent persons take part in the celebrations

Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty

RIOT OF COLOUR: Tribal children celebrating Holi in the largest tribal school in Bhubaneswar on Saturday.

BHUBANESWAR: Holi, the festival of colours, was celebrated with great enthusiasm by students of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) in the capital city on Saturday.

The school offers free boarding and education from primary to Plus Two science level to 3000 tribal children belonging to 28 tribes coming from 30 districts of Orissa.

The Holi celebration in the school was inaugurated by Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Development Minister Chaitanya Prasad Majhi.

A host of Oriya film personalities and eminent persons also attended the celebrations and played Holi with the tribal boys and girls.

Traffic diverted

BERHAMPUR: National Highway number five is closed for vehicular traffic at Ganjam town since Friday evening for traditional celebration of Holi.

According to officials NH 5 would remain closed at this point for vehicular traffic till the celebrations are over by Sunday afternoon.

Vehicular traffic on the highway is being diverted through a village road via Damodarpur village, informed Deputy Superintendent of Police R.K.Patnaik, who is monitoring law and order situation at this point.

For the Holi and Vasant Purnima celebrations deities from various temples of the area congregate at Ganjam town and celebration takes place on the National Highway itself. It was a tradition continuing for the last 400 years, said the inhabitants of the area.

The road on which the deities used to congregate surely was a village road centuries back but with time it has got converted into National Highway.

But both administration and police have failed to persuade inhabitants of Ganjam area to shift the place of celebration to some other open space nearby although it is a perennial headache for them.

The village road that is used as a diversion is quite unable to handle the heavy traffic on the highway. On Saturday afternoon a long line of vehicles for more than 8 kms could be seen from Chatrapur to Ganjam awaiting to cross the blocked stretch of highway at Ganjam.

Most worried are the lorry drivers carrying perishable goods like K.Narayanna, who is carrying a truck load of fish from Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh to Kolkata. By noon he had spent more than four hours waiting for his chance to cross this stretch of National Highway through the diversion. "Loss caused to my cargo due to this delay would affect me as well as the owner of the cargo," said Narayana. He is not opposed to traditional celebration of Holi but feels it should not affect the livelihood and life of people who work on this day.

Even the buses carrying passengers from Berhampur to Bhubaneswar and vice-versa were stranded at the spot. Two and half platoons of policemen had to be deployed at the spot to check possibilities of confrontation between the drivers and passengers with the Holi celebrators of Ganjam town.

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