Mysore Dasara 2013 set to start today

The four-century-old Dasara celebrations will take off on Saturday amid hopes of drawing a large number of visitors during the festivities.

The celebrations date back to the days of Raja Wadiyar, who celebrated it for the first time from his capital city, Srirangapatna, in 1610 emulating the Vijayanagar rulers.

The celebrations continued till the last days of the last ruler of Mysore, Jayachamaraja Wadiyar.

The scion of the royal family Srikanta Datta Narasimharaja Wadiyar now continues the tradition in his personal capacity in the private wings of the Mysore Palace on a smaller scale.

Mysore is being decked up to showcase Rs 10 crore Mysore Dasara 2013 that will be inaugurated by Jnanpith awardee Chandrashekar Kambara at 10.40 am on October 5 at Chamundeswari Temple atop Chamundi Hill.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is arriving in Mysore this evening to take part in the inauguration. He will inaugurate the state-level Dasara sports and Dasara music programmes at 6 pm. in the Palace and also present the Sangeetha Vidwan award to the state's top musician - part of a line up of about 25 programmes over October 5 to 14.

During the 10 days, several programmes are organised at different venues - cultural programmes at the Palace, Jaganmohan Palace, Kala Mandira, Ganabharathi, Town Hall, Kuppanna Park, and Dufferin Clock Tower, food mela, Dasara Exhibition, flower show, wrestling, Dasara sports, adventure and water sports, children's, farmers' and women's Dasara. Yoga Dasara, kite festival, joy rides, heritage walks, vintage photo exhibition and the concluding Vijaya Dasami procession and parade at Banni Mantap have also been organised.

In a bid to draw more tourists, a slew of publicity and advertising initiatives in print and electronic media at 787 railway stations and bus stands across the country and at Bangalore and Mysore airports, have been launched at Rs 50 lakh cost.

The city, its most lauded Palace, heritage and public buildings, parks and main thoroughfares, including the Sayaji Rao Road procession route are well-illuminated during the period. However, to cut its power bill by 40 per cent, the Chamundeswari Electricity Supply Company has used environmental friendly Light Emitting Diode (LED) and CLF bulbs in place of the conventional incandescent bulbs to illuminate about 40 cricles and a stretch of 30 km road.

To ensure safety and security, city police have drafted 6,227 police personnel from different wings, including abomb detection and defusal squad.

Corporate sponsors for Dasara programmes have however shied away this year contributing only Rs 20 lakh, about 50 per cent of last year's support, sponsorship coming from TVS (Rs 11 lakh), KPTCL (Rs 5 lakh) and other companies.

A strong bid was made last year to sell Dasara to draw more tourists last year, both domestic and international, to Mysore during the festival season. The then tourism minister R V Deshpande had held a special meeting with some foreign consulates in addition to state government officials.