Thrissur Pooram ‘kodiyettu’ tomorrow: Celebrity elephant to be absent; important dates, timings

The eagerly awaited Thrissur Pooram of the year will be held on Tuesday, May 6. The ‘kodiyettu’, aka flag hoisting of the festival, will be held tomorrow (April 30) at 11.30 am. The sample fireworks (vedikettu) will be held on May 4 at 7 pm, ‘vilambaram’ aka announcement and the pooram expo on May 5, the main fireworks on May 7 at 3 pm and the final ceremonies of ‘pakalppooram’ and ‘upachaaram chollipiriyal’ will be held at 8 am and 12 pm respectively on the same date. As per reports, Thechikottukaavu Ramachandran, the celebrity elephant who symbolically opens the southern gate of the Vadakkumnathan Temple, kicking off the event, will be absent from the festival this year. The Thechikottukavu Devaswom stated that the decision is due to the difficulty in handling the crowd and safety concerns when the elephant arrives.

KSRTC to run extra services
KSRTC will operate extra services during the Pooram days. Besides the 58 services charted from Thrissur depot, 80 fast passenger buses and 12 ordinary buses would be brought from various depots. Meanwhile, the DTO stated that he had written to the corporation to request permission to allocate a parking space in the Shaktan stand for the buses.

The buses would be brought to the KSRTC stand before being scheduled on various routes. Extra buses will run services on the day of the sample vedikettu (fireworks) too. The fast passenger buses will operate from the KSRTC stand. The number of passengers would determine the services in each route. Usually, Kozhikode, Ernakulam and Kottayam routes are the busiest. On May 4, the day of the sample vedikettu, 15 fast passenger buses and 12 ordinary buses would be brought to Thrissur from various depots by 4 pm. The remaining buses are expected to arrive at 4 pm on May 6, the main day of the Pooram festival.

The ordinary buses are likely to come from Chalakkudy, Angamali, Mala, Irinjalakuda, Kodungallur and Puthukad depots, while the fast passenger buses will be brought from Guruvayur, Ernakulam, Aluva, Perumbavoor, Perinthalmanna, Malappuram, Nilambur, Palakkad, Vadakkancherry, Chittoor, Kottayam and Thodupuzha depots.