This year, 240 trees will be cut for the construction of a two-storey Vijay Rath with eight wheels during Bastar Dussehra

Jagdalpur, 4 August (HS). This year, a 8-wheeled two-storey Vijay Rath will be built in the princely historical Bastar Dussehra Mahaparva. For this, about 240 trees of Sal and Bija species will be cut from Machkot, Darbha and Jagdalpur forest areas. The construction of the two-storey Rath for Bastar Dussehra will be started in the coming days by bringing the cut wood in front of Sirhasar Bhawan. In Bastar Dussehra, a new two-storey Rath with four and eight wheels respectively is built every year. Many decisions were taken in the meeting of Bastar Dussehra Committee held on Sunday.

This year the new Vijay Rath with eight wheels will be driven during Raini Puja Vidhan within Bastar Dussehra and during Bahar Raini Puja Vidhan on the second day. It was told that approximately 54 cubic meters of wood is required to make the Vijay Rath. The Bastar Dussehra festival is dedicated to Mata Mawali and Maa Danteshwari; in this the umbrella of Mata Danteshwari will be placed on the huge two-storey chariot and the princely era tradition of Rath Parikrama will be carried out for a week as per the scheduled program. There is no tradition of killing Ravana in the Bastar Dussehra festival. The work of chariot building is done by hundreds of artisans from villages Beda Umargaon and Jhar Umargaon with their traditional tools.

It is noteworthy that according to the decision taken in the meeting of Bastar Dussehra Committee, four times more trees will be planted every year in place of the trees cut every year for the construction of the chariot. This was also followed by planting trees in the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, but plantation could not be done in the year 2023. This year, in the meeting of Bastar Dussehra Committee in the Collectorate, it has also been decided to do compensatory plantation for the years 2023 and 2024.