Luxury tents dented earnings of Akhadas

Luxury tents dented earnings of Akhadas
SHARAD GUPTA

ALLAHABAD, JANUARY 23: Economic reasons, rather than religious factors, seem to have prompted the Akhada Parishad's protests against Cox and Kings, the travel agency which has pitched luxury tents in the Kumbh area.

In the absence of such luxury tents during the Kumbh Melas earlier, most of the akhadas had been providing hospitality to foreigners, journalists and well-off devotees in return for generous donations. With Cox and Kings entering the scene this time, they were deprived of some easy money and this angered them no end, claimed a senior government official.

The Allahabad Commissioner today deferred a verdict on the Akhada Parishad Mahant's petition for removing the luxury Swiss cottages till January 27. The Kumbh will be over by Basant Panchami, January 29.

The travel agency has been offering packages with the daily rent ranging from Rs 5000 to Rs 7000 per head. It has put up 70 Swiss cottages in the mela area.

A local hotelier, Anil Agarwal, who was leading the protests against Cox and Kings, fell silent after he too was granted a licence by the mela administration to put up luxury cottages, sources in the state administration pointed out.

Inquiries by the administration have revealed that the Akhada Parishad's allegation that foreigners were being supplied liquor and non-vegetarian food in Cox and Kings' cottages was baseless.

A new allegation to have been levelled by Mahant Durga Das of the Akhada Parishad is that the journalists -- mostly foreigners -- staying in the luxury tents were taking obscene pictures of bathing women, and that the tents had been pitched in ``annakshetra'', in violation of Hindu culture.

The local administration, headed by Divisional Commissioner Sadakant, has been delaying a verdict on the issue for the past 10 days. ``We don't want to spoil India's image on the international tourism map because of some vested interests,'' said a senior official.

This is why, claim some sources, Sadakant has been deferring the verdict on some pretext or the other despite court orders to decide the case by January 18. From January 18, the hearing was postponed to January 20 and then to Jannuary 23 because the administration was collecting photographic and videographic evidences regarding the Mahant's allegations.

Sadakant has received all the reports on ``annakshetra'' and the controversial photographs from the mela administration and press information bureau. Yet, he again postponed the verdict to January 27 since he was ``busy looking after the arrangements for Mauni Amavasya tomorrow'' which is expected to attract a crowd of three crores.