Kolkata's Durga Puja organisers hopeful of grand celebrations

Bikash Basu, an official of the big-budget Durga Puja in the city, is keeping his fingers crossed. He hopes that the Covid situation would not deteriorate to devastating levels like the past two years.

The member of the College Square Sarbojonin Durga Puja says there is a hunch that people will hit the streets more this time.

Despite a recent surge in coronavirus cases, the College Square is among the many community committees that are going ahead with full-scale celebrations of the Durga Puja in Kolkata, which has been inscribed by Unesco on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity last December.

Several organisers have conducted khuti puja — rituals to start putting up the marquee — and have not yet altered previous plans to hold the grand festivities, unlike the muted scale in the past two years.

“We have a budget of Rs 80-90 lakh this year, up above the Rs 50-60 lakh during the pandemic time,” Basu tells PTI.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)