Vijayawada: Villages deck up for Sankranti festivities

Vijayawada: Villages are wearing a festive look. People are ready to welcome their kith and kin with rangolis and have made arrangements to celebrate the festival by flying kites, playing cards, watching movies and serving homemade traditional delicacies.

The Hyderabad- Vijayawada national highway has started witnessing traffic jams as all those who have cars are preferring to travel by their own vehicles in the wake of Omicron fear.

Arrangements for cockfights have also been made in a big way despite court orders and restrictions from district administration. This happens every year. The administration says they will not permit it but these events are held and lakhs of money keeps changing hands. People of East and West Godavari districts argue that there is no festival without cockfights.

In the past, West Godavari was known for cockfights during the Sankranti festival and celebrities used to visit the district. Now cockfights have been decentralised and have spread to neighbouring districts. In West Godavari district, more than 100 training centres were set up for organising the cockfights. Over the years, this sport has spread to the Konaseema region.

Kakinada rural areas, Peddapuram and Jaggampet areas of East Godavari district have become the hotspots for such events. Not to lag behind, Krishna district more so in the upland areas is also geared up for cockfights. Nuzvid, Vissannapet, Putrela and Tiruvur mandals and at Vuyyur and Palnadu and Nizampatnam regions in Guntur district also will witness cockfights.

It is estimated that the cockfight betting business ranges between Rs 3,000 crore to Rs 4,000 crore during the Sankranti festival season. Now with the Covid new variant scare the organisers are a bit worried.

However, the Damocles' sword of the Omicron surge looms large as over 1,800 positive cases of Covid were reported in the last 24 hours. A majority of people are coming from Hyderabad, Benguluru, Chennai and other metropolitan cities and abroad. While at home or during meeting friends, if the people do not follow Covid appropriate behaviour, Sankranti may lead to a steep increase in Covid positive cases, health experts warn.