Parmarth Niketan, Gayatri Shantikunj hold special events

Tribune News Service

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Haridwar, June 14

Swarg Ashram-based Parmarth Niketan Ashram and Gayatri Teerth Shantikunj held special religious and cultural events here today to celebrate Ganga Dasehra.

At Parmarth Niketan, a three-day Ganga Dasehra festival commenced today in which, besides local devotees, foreign Ganga devotees are also taking part.

A group of foreign women devotees cleaned Ganga ghats and named themselves Ganga, Yamuna, Gomti, Narmada, Shipra, Saryu and Tapti.

Spiritual ideologue of Parmarth Niketan Swami Chidanand Saraswati said the objective of the three-day Ganga Dasehra festival is to give out a message about ensuring purity and sanctity of the sacred river.

Swami Chidanand Saraswati expressed concern over the pollution in the holy river and said 80 per cent of the pollution was sewage waste and effective measures were needed to ensure the river retains its original purity.

Environment Minister Dinesh Aggarwal also visited Parmarth Niketan on the inaugural day of the festival.

Swami Satyamitranand Giri, Acharya Balkrishan, Sadhvi Bhagwati Saraswati, Gurdwara Bangla Sahib head Paramjeet Singh Chandhok and other eminent saints and environmentalists also graced the occasion.

Meanwhile, at Gayatri Teerth Shantikunj, spiritual ideologue Dr Pranav Pandya and Shail Jiji announced a mass cleaning drive in the Ganga and 30 other major rivers of the country to mark the occasion.

Besides this cleanliness drive, a mass plantation drive would also be carried out on the banks of these rivers in which about a million volunteers and activists of Akhil Bharatiya Gayatri Parivar would take part.