Approximately three crore of the devotees in the state of Telangana and the neighbouring states like Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh are likely to attend the biennial event at the Medaram Maha Jathara to be held in the state of Mulugu within the month of January 28 to 31. The festival is dedicated to tribal goddesses Sammakka and Saralamma, and is considered as among the biggest Adivasi congregations of spiritual nature in the world.
There are comprehensive preparations by the Telangana government of the mega event. The Maha Jathara will commence officially at 6 pm on January 28 with the tribal priests putting in place the idols of Goddess Saralamma, as well as, Govindaraju and Pagididdarju, at the sacred gadde. At 6 pm on January 29, goddess Sammakka will be installed ceremonially at the altar, according to the officials on Tuesday.
The planning of the festival started almost half a year ago. January 19 Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy opened the refurbished shrine of goddesses Sammakka and Saralamma at Medaram. The state government also made improvements to the infrastructure, including the reconstruction of the gaddelu of Sammakka, Saralamma, Govindaraju and Pagididda Raju at 101 crore.
In a bid to handle the large numbers of the devotees, the government has deployed 21 departments and sent 42,000 people to control the logistics, crowd handling, security, sanitation and health. The festival premises have been subdivided into eight administrative districts and 42 sectors to make it easy to coordinate them.
Approximately 4,000 buses which will be operated by the Telangana Road Transport Corporation will form part of transporting pilgrims. Moreover, there will be a total of over 5,000 health officers, government ambulances, and 40 bike ambulances in the venue which will give medical support during the four-day event.
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