Locals sell hot water to devotees at Medaram ahead of Maha Jatara

Ahead of the Medaram Maha Jatara, locals are selling hot water for Rs 50 per bucket to devotees during the Sankranti rush. Over one lakh devotees visited on Friday, causing traffic jams in Mulugu near key temples and roads

Mulugu: ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’ is often used to explain how needs or problems drive people to find innovative solutions.

True to the saying, some locals at Medaram came up with an innovative idea to earn money during the huge rush of devotees making pre-jatara visits to Medaram to pray and make offerings to the deities Sammakka Saralamma.

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Taking advantage of the cold conditions, the locals are selling hot water for Rs 50 per bucket. They are heating water on wooden stoves in big cauldrons near the Jampanna stream and selling it to devotees who wanted to bathe before having darshan of the deities. While fulfilling the needs of the devotees, locals are also earning through this business idea. Most devotees are ready to pay Rs 50 as elders and children in their families could not bathe with cold water, said devotee R Uppal of Paloncha, who recently visited Medaram.

He complained that most of the water sprinklers set up on the banks of Jampannavagu for devotees to take a holy bath were not functioning when he visited a couple of days ago. Meanwhile, there has been a heavy rush of devotees at Medaram due to Sankranti holidays. Over one lakh devotees visited the place on Friday. As many as 600 police personnel were deployed to maintain traffic.

Traffic was jammed near the Mulugu Gattamma temple. It was severely disrupted from Jaggaram to Medaram and also at Kannepalli, Jampannavagu and near the Haritha Hotel due to heavy congestion of vehicles.

The Medaram Maha Jatara will be held from January 28 to 31. According to priests’ suggestions, development works at Medaram will be inaugurated on January 19, and a State Cabinet meeting is scheduled to be held at Medaram on the evening of January 18.