Postal dept to provide Gangajal outside temples

Nitish Sharma

Tribune News Service

Ambala, July 14

As no Kanwar Yatra will be held this year due to the Covid pandemic, the postal department has decided to set up kiosks outside all popular temples in cities for enabling the devotees to perform ‘jal abhishek’ on Shivratri this year, and provide them Gangajal sourced from the Gangotri, Uttarakhand.

Every year, ‘kanwariyas’ travel hundreds of kilometers from their respective districts to Haridwar, and bring back water from the Ganga and offer to the ‘Shivlings’ at the temples.

Prabhat Goyal, Assistant Superintendent, Business Development, Haryana circle, said, “The postal department has been providing Gangajal sourced from the Gangotri at the post offices since 2016, and the department had sold around 15,000 bottles last year. The department has been setting up kiosks for the past two years, but they were limited to a few temples. The Gangajal is available in 250 ml bottles at the cost of Rs 30. Sufficient stock is available with the post offices. Around 10,000 bottles were supplied last weekend, another 50,000 will be supplied this week, and around 1 lakh bottles will be ready for supply as per the demand. Directions have been issued to the post masters to identify the temples the state where the kiosks will be set up.”

“There are 511 big post offices across the state. While stocks have been made available at 80 big post offices, the remaining ones will get their stocks soon. If the customers are not in a position to reach the post office, they can call at their nearest post office and avail of the home delivery service. The consumer can also use ‘Dak Mitra’ mobile application of the department from July 15,” he said.

Ranju Prasad, Chief Post Master General, Haryana Postal Circle, said “Every year devotees bring Gangajal during ‘Sawan’. However, as devotees will not be able to get Gangajal from Uttarakhand this year, the department has decided to provide it outside all popular temples.”