Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik flags off senior citizen pilgrimage tour
Bhubaneswar/UNI: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today flagged off the pilgrimage tour of the senior citizens from Balasore to Haridwar and Rishikesh through video conferencing from here.
As many as 970 senior citizens from five districs-- Balasore, Bhadrak, Mayurbhanj, Jajpur and Keonjhar districts accompanied by 30 escort officials start their journey from Balasore by a special train.
Odisha Minister for Tourism Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi and local MLAs saw off the pilgrims at the Balasore railway station.
The passengers of the Tirtha Jatra Special Train will also visit various religious places like Haridwar, Mansadevi Temple, Har ki Pauri including Ramjhula and Laxmanjhula at Hrisikesh.
Odisha government has launched the scheme in 2016 with an objective to offer an opportunity to the poor and deprived senior citizens of the state to realize their dream of having an pilgrimage and fulfil their spiritual aspirations.
About 12,000 senior citizens have availed the pilgrimage tour programme since the beginning of the programme.
Three more teams will go on pilgrimage tour during 2019-20. While one team will leave for Rameswar and Madurai from Berhampur in January, the second team will leave for Agra, Mathura and Brundaban from Sambalpur and third team will leave for Allahabad and Banaras from Bhubaneswar in February.
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