“The prime minister had said that the people who visit places like Kedarnath, wish to spend time in such places to meditate,” said Utpal Kumar Singh, state chief secretary. “The prime minister had said that the people who visit places like Kedarnath, wish to spend time in such places to meditate,” said Utpal Kumar Singh, state chief secretary.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday reviewed the ongoing work on one of his pet projects – the reconstruction of the Kedarpuri town which encompasses the holy Kedarnath shrine. Here, the construction of a meditation cave for pilgrims is underway, even as a laser show on Lord Shiva awaits the pilgrims.

On Wednesday, as drone cameras flew over the Kedarnath Valley, state chief secretary Utpal Kumar Singh showed PM Modi the ongoing reconstruction works at Kedarnath. The prime minister had laid the foundation stone during his visit to the shrine in October last year. The ongoing project now includes the work on a cave being prepared for meditation.

“The prime minister had said that the people who visit places like Kedarnath, wish to spend time in such places to meditate,” Singh said, adding the meditation cave at Kedarpuri, construction work on which would be over by May this year, would be of “immense value” to pilgrims visiting the shrine.

Singh said that the administration was “still working out” the arrangements for the meditation cave. “It’s a small room under a rock (200 metres above the Mandakini river) with an attached bathroom, so the person meditating there need not move out of the cave till the meditation period is over,” he said, adding that similar places for meditation were being sought at other places in the Kedarnath Valley.

A week-long laser show on Lord Shiva that is being organised at the Kedarnath shrine from April 28 onwards has drawn flak from the Congress in Uttarakhand. Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Harish Rawat slammed PM Modi for giving “an artificial experience of Lord Shiva to the pilgrims who visit Kedarnath for a natural experience of Shiva through the shrine”. However, Singh on Wednesday said that the laser show was a “pilot project to give a new experience to the pilgrims” and that there was “nothing controversial in it”.

While it is being said that Modi, who had visited the Kedarnath shrine on October 20, last year, would also attend the ceremony of the opening of the shrine portals on April 29, Singh said no such information on the prime minister’s visit to Kedarnath had been officially communicated to the Uttarakhand administration yet.

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