The Dev Deepawali festival in Varanasi may turn out to be a lacklustre affair this year following a tussle between the local puja committees and the district administration.

Citing security reasons, the district administration had asked the puja committees to abide by a few measures, which the committees refused.

And though the district administration has now given a go-ahead to the committees to organise the festival, the latter say they have little time on hand and no support from the administration to organise the same.

District Magistrate A K Upadhyaya said: “There are indeed security concerns regarding a festival of such a big magnitude. We just asked the committees to take some measures and allow us a pathway till the ghats so as to ensure that incase of any untoward incident, emergency services can reach the venue.”

On Friday morning, after a series of meetings with the Puja committees, the administration finally gave a go-ahead to the festival.

Upadhyaya added, “Our main concern was the security of people and convinience of the crowd. But since the committees do not wish to cooperate with us, we have asked them to go ahead with the festival. We will do our best by providing extra security.”

The order, however, has evoked anger among the various committees. Dr Bhavna Trivedi, secretary of the Ganga Sewa Nidhi, a key organiser of the fair, said: “We have absolutely no support from the administration in organising the festival, which brings in so many tourists to the holy city. They have imposed so many restrictions without any support or alternate measures. It takes at least a month to prepare and now, we just cannot sum up everything.”

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