- Sunday, March 09, 2025
By: PTI
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on Friday (21) offered prayers at the famous Kedarnath and Badrinath temples in the northern state of Uttarakhand.
After performing puja at the Kedarnath temple in Rudraprayag district, the prime minister arrived at the Badrinath temple in Chamoli in a helicopter.
During his two-day tour of the state, Modi will inspect various ongoing development projects and lay the foundation stones for some new ones.
The prime minister performed the puja at the temples wearing a white traditional attire of the hill people with a swastika embroidered on it.
At Kedarnath, he also laid the foundation stone for the 9.7-kilometre-long Gaurikund-Kedarnath ropeway project.
Using the ropeway, devotees will be able to reach the temple from Gaurikund in 30 minutes.
The priests, who performed the puja, prayed for strength to the prime minister to take the country forward.
Modi also visited the Samadhi Sthal of Adi Guru Shankaracharya at Kedarnath and spent some time there.
At Badrinath Dham, he will review the progress of the development projects along the riverfront.
In the afternoon, Modi was set to lay the foundation stones for road and ropeway projects worth Rs 3,400 crore (£368 million) for the Kedarnath and Badrinath temples, and address a gathering at Mana village.
He will also review the progress of the beautification project of the Arrival Plaza and the lakes in the area.
The prime minister will spend the night at Badrinath. Earlier in the day, the prime minister was received by Uttarakhand governor lieutenant-general Gurmit Singh; chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, and central minister Ajay Bhatt on his arrival at the Jolly Grant airport in Dehradun in an Indian Air Force plane.
This is Modi’s sixth visit to Kedarnath and second to Badrinath as the prime minister.
Security has been tightened around the two famous hill temples in view of the prime minister’s visit. Both the temples have been decorated with quintals of flowers.
