Big-ticket events off Mysuru Dasara this yr

Given farmer suicides, festivities will be toned down: Minister

Big-ticket events such as Yuva Dasara, Yuva Sambhrama and Food Mela will not be held at the upcoming Mysuru Dasara (Nada Habba of Karnataka), and many other ceremonies part of the annual festival will be scaled down.

The festival will be without the great razzmatazz it has become famous for over the years, mainly in the wake of an agrarian crisis gripping the State, Mysuru district in-charge minister V Srinivas Prasad told reporters on Friday.

Prasad, who also heads the Dasara Executive Committee, said an in-principle decision had been taken to do away with  big-ticket events. Dasara this year will be simple, as announced earlier by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

No artiste from outside Karnataka will perform. All cultural activities will have only local artistes. Gaja Payana (the journey of the first batch of six elephants from the forest to Mysuru chosen to perform in the Jamboo Savari) will be held on September 4, without any fanfare. The pachyderms, however, will be welcomed at the Mysuru Palace on their arrival.

Unlike the past when a prominent person would inaugurate the Navaratri festivities atop Chamundi Hills, this year a progressive farmer will do the honour. Then, only local artistes will be involved in the Jamboo Savari procession and the cultural programmes on the palace premises, the minister said. Torchlight Parade, another event that marks the culmination of Navaratri at Bannimantap grounds, will be restricted to acrobatics by the Army and police personnel. There will be no fireworks — the highlight of the event all these years — either. Sports will be held as a district-level event, not state-level as in previous years.

But Dasara exhibition, flower show and Raitha Dasara will be conducted as usual, while the focus of Poets’ Meet will be on farmers issues. Most importantly, the festival will be restricted to the local level, with Chamarajanagar and Mandya districts dropped from the list. In previous years, the festival was extended to the two neighbouring districts to involve a large number of people.

 Barring Amba Vilas Palace and its surroundings that are popularly known as ‘Raja Marga’, no other prominent building and roads in the city will be illuminated during the festival. The Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation has been directed to give thrust to minimal use of power, said Prasad.

 The decisions taken by the committee will be discussed at the Cabinet meeting scheduled for Monday in Bengaluru, and the chief minister taken into confidence before a final programme of events is prepared, the minister said. The decision on forming sub-committees and preparing the budget will be taken later, he added.