Jammu: Though the annual pilgrimage to Shri Amarnath Cave Shrine was cancelled this year as well due to COVID pandemic but the chants of ‘Bam Bam Bhole’, and ‘Har Har Mahadev’ with holy bells ringing--facilitated by the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board with ‘Live Arti’ audible in houses and social media platforms.
The devotees however, thanking the Board for this noble initiative have expressed that they are ‘feeling blessed’.
An official of Shri Amarnath Shrine Board told UNI that this year Shri Amarnathji Yatra was cancelled by the Government due to COVID-19 pandemic, adding, “to keep the religious sentiments alive, Shrine Board has made all arrangements to carry out religious rituals at the cave shrine.”
He said that as a new initiative, Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, who is also the Chairman Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, along with Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Board, on July 6, launched the Online Services of the Board.
The official said that ‘MH One’ channel was officially authorized to telecast the morning and evening ‘Aarti’ on its network and the feed is also shared with Doordarshan.
“Accordingly, the morning and evening Aarti is being telecast live by these networks and in addition the live stream of the telecast is available on Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board website with link www.shriamarnathjishrine.AartiLive.html,” he expressed adding that the facilitators are streaming it live on their social media platform as well like Youtube channels etc having the viewership in thousands.
“The Board this year, in association with Reliance- Jio have also launched a dedicated channel naming “Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board” on Jio-TV-- a mobile based platform and the company has also laid and provided its high speed fibre connectivity to Shrine Board,” said the official.
“The My Jio-TV channel is live streaming 24x7 the darshan of the holy shrine,” said an official.
The netizens sharing their views on various social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter have thanked the government for making them feel special.
A devotee namely Chetan S Patil in a tweet wrote, “Giving credit to @PMOIndia when it's due.Opted for Virtual Darshan of Amarnathji. Fabulous Xperience. Booked Online Pooja. A day before, got a confirmation call & explained the procedure to login via @jiomeet. Prayers were on scheduled time & they even took our names, Pooja was performed and received the Prasad by #SpeedPost.”
Another netizen, Nishant tweeted, “Performed virtual Pooja of #BabaAmarnath today. Well & timely organized, Great darshan sitting at home. May Mahadev bless all of us. Thanks @ShriSasb for this great experience @narendermodi @OfficeOfLGJandK.”
Devotee Anusha Aniruddha Deodhar tweets, “This year, due to covid all religious places are closed. So we opted out for the Online Puja of Baba Amarnath. Overall it’s a great experience. I thank @ShriSasb & @OfficeOfLGJandK for the arrangements. Jai Baba Barfani.”
The official further disclosed that apart from ‘Live Arti’, online services like Virtual Pooja by Name, Special Hawan, Prasad Booking with 5 gram silver coin of Amarnathji, Prasad Booking with 10 gram silver coin of Amarnathji, combination of both are also made available through online link https://jksasb.nic.in/online_service.aspx
“Till now, more than 1300 devotees are benefitted with the online services,” he expressed.
The yatra this year had to begin from June 28 and was scheduled to conclude on August 22 (Rakshabandhan) but the pilgrimage likewise 2020, this was also cancelled due to COVID pandemic.
The registration of devotees for the annual pilgrimage -2021 was closed indefinitely on April 22.
In the year 2019, the Yatra was postponed fearing a terrorist attack on July 31 and finally cancelled in August first week. (UNI)