The minister was on a trial to collect opinion of ‘aam admi’ regarding Dasara festival. Although, his seat was reserved in the air conditioned coach he came to unreserved coaches to collect suggestions from the cross section of people to make Dasara a gala event. The commuters were rather pleasantly surprised to see Sureshkumar clad in trademark khadi jubba and pajamas mingling with people. Some of them poured in their woes of travelling in the overcrowded Chamundi Express daily and requested him to impress upon the Centre to run trains on Bangalore-Ramnagar. A few lady commuters complained regarding graffiti written inside toilets and also lack of safety in the compartments. The minister who gave a patient hearing promised to inform the railway authorities to deploy more Railway Projection Force personnel especially in ladies compartments.
Subsequently, when Sureshkumar explained the purpose of he travelling in train, a number of suggestions came in. Some were angry over exorbitant money being given to artists to perform in Yuva Dasara thereby totally neglecting local artists. The minister said from this year, the government has decided to hold a separate programme ‘Manoranjan Dasara’ exclusively to give preference for local artists. The commuters complained regarding tableax given final touches during the eleventh hour of the Jamboo savari procession. To which, Sureshkumar said he will be holding a video conferencing with the secretary, Department of Rural Development on Thursday to instruct all the zilla panchayats to keep the tableax at least one day in advance. The tableaux that are not ready on the day of Dasara procession, would not be allowed to participate in the procession.On inauguration of empty exhibition on the first day of Dasara, Urban Development Minister promised that this time, all the government departments and shops would be kept ready one day in advance. “You will see a lot of changes this time”, he added.
The citizens complained about high rate charged by hoteliers during Dasara, Sureshkumar said the hoteliers are not ready to serve ‘Dasara Thali’ for Rs 10. So, he would negotiate and pursue them to fix the rate at Rs 15 per plate.The minister met at least 20-25 persons in each compartment. He covered almost all the compartments before reaching Mysore.
