We have announced that our government will give a financial support of ₹5 lakh to 60 Rath Yatra committees to promote traditional religious festivals in the state. Besides financial assistance, the government will also make a wide-ranging plan to make special facilities available to the devotees during the upcoming Shravan month, and to make Bengal’s cultural heritage our first priority.
The Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, who also announced on Monday that it is not the only government doing so, said the financial support is a demonstration of government involvement in one of the oldest religious traditions of the state and that it is not only a matter of administrative support.
The selected committees are among the state’s most established Rath Yatra celebrations which have been organized for decades, the Chief Minister said. He said the government would like to make this an annual tradition and said the selection process for the first year might not be perfect.
We will provide ₹5 lakh each to 60 Rath Yatra committees that have been organising these festivals for decades. This is our participation in preserving a cherished tradition." He also appealed to organizers to take the government grant to restore and maintain their historic wooden chariots, many of which are considered part of Bengal’s rich cultural legacy.
The Chief Minister compared the new initiative with the previous administration's approach, saying that then governments limited their role to police traffic during the festival. The present government is committed to development along with heritage preservation under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said.
During the celebrations, the state government will also establish service centres at 75 heritage Rath Yatra fairs across West Bengal. These centres will be run by the Information and Cultural Affairs Department along with municipal bodies, district administration, police and local organisers and will provide necessary facilities for devotees going to them.
The state’s focus also extends to Rath Yatra. Special arrangements have been made for the Shravan pilgrims, who go to Shiva temples for the traditional water carrying pilgrimage.
The Chief Minister said service centres would be established at intervals of every five kilometres along the pilgrimage route between Sheoraphuli and Tarakeswar, one of the state’s most important religious corridors. In addition to this, the government is investing ₹15 crore to upgrade the Tarakeswar temple complex and surrounding infrastructure.
Three major pilgrimage centres have been selected for better services during Shravan—Tarakeswar, Jalpesh Temple in Jalpaiguri and a temple in the Jayanti region near the Bhutan border.
Pilgrims will have access to a number of public facilities such as police assistance booths, temporary medical camps, drinking water, ORS distribution sites and resting areas in these destinations for safer and more comfortable trips.
The Chief Minister also announced that rose petals will be showered from helicopters on pilgrims every Monday during the Shravan month, subject to favourable weather conditions. He said he would go to Tarakeswar on July 14 to check the arrangements.
In a move that encapsulated the government’s wider commitment to religious heritage, the Chief Minister recalled that the state budget had introduced a Pilgrimage Circuit project. Old temples and historical religious sites like Kiriteswari Temple and many monasteries have been restored and are under heritage conservation programs.
The government has earmarked ₹1,000 crore for the conservation, maintenance and development of religious sites in the state. Hospitals operated by Bharat Sevashram Sangha are also included in the Ayushman Bharat healthcare scheme and ₹5 crore has been allocated as a corpus fund for the preservation of Swami Vivekananda's ancestral home on Simla Street.
The latest developments are a reflection of the government’s plan to integrate infrastructure development, cultural preservation and pilgrim welfare in West Bengal as one of the key locations for religious tourism and heritage conservation.
