Haryana Antarrashtriya Gita Jayanti Mela Authority Bill, 2024

• 02 Mar 2024

Why in News?

Recently, the Haryana Assembly passed ‘Haryana Antarrashtriya Gita Jayanti Mela Authority Bill, 2024’ to set up an independent authority for organising the annual Gita Jayanti Mahotsav and for popularising and disseminating teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.

Key Points

• A large number of devotees and people at large, both from the country and abroad, enthusiastically involve themselves with the local people during the period of Mahotsav. Currently, there is no independent authority/body in the state to organise the Gita Jayanti Mahotsav.
• According to the bill, the main functions of the authority will be to popularise and disseminate the teachings of Srimad Bhagavad Gita as well as organise cultural and educational seminars, workshops, fairs, exhibitions and conferences.
• The authority shall consist of members, including the chief minister as its chairperson and the urban local bodies minister as the senior vice-chairperson. There will be one vice chairperson, who will be an eminent and distinguished person, to be nominated by the state government.
• Gita Jayanti festival has been celebrated over the years and the Kurukshetra Development Board (KDB) has been organising the event.
  • KDB will function as before. But a new authority will specifically take care of how to expand this festival further on a global scale and take the message of Bhagavad Gita to the entire world.

Gita Jayanti Mahotsav

• The Celebration of Gita Mahotsav brings a moral and cultural resurgence among the people.
• The prime objective of celebrating the festival of Gita Jayanti is to enlighten the people by the immortal and intangible heritage of Bhagavad Gita- the song celestial.
• The Government of Haryana is Celebrating Gita Mahotsav festival in collaboration with the KDB in the city of Kurukshetra since 1989.