By IANS
Jaipur : Over 5,000 people, including 3,510 priests, participated in a massive ‘bhumi puja’ ceremony for a condo homes project here Saturday, simultaneously breaking the ground with shovels, to set a Guinness world record for such an event.
Kim Lacey from Guinness World Records, who had flown down from London to adjudicate, witnessed the event. “This is truly amazing. I have never seen such an event before. Yes, it has certainly set a world record,” she said.
The ground-breaking ceremony was conducted for the condo homes project MyHaveli@Mannat1, developed by Unique Builders, a Mannat Group enterprise.
She confirmed that the event would be recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records, surpassing the earlier record set in September 2003, when 2,453 people with shovels simultaneously broke ground for the Providence Newberg Medical Center in Oregon, US.
MyHaveli has 3,510 condo homes on the Jaipur-Ajmer national highway – so 3,510 priests, literally one per condominium, were specially requested to perform the rituals. The puja was performed as per tradition, with a large ritual fire, Vedic chants by the pundits, and special prayers for the good of mankind.
Vibhishek Singh, director, Unique Builders, said: “Nowhere in the history of real estate has such a ceremony taken place.”
Amit Bagaria, chairman, asipac realty group, said: “We spent several months organising the event. The biggest challenge was to find 3,510 pundits to congregate in Jaipur, to match the number of condos. Stand-bys had to be ready for contingency.”
asipac aims to deliver 342,000 affordable condos throughout India. Unique Builders, a Mannat group enterprise, is one of the leading developers in Rajasthan.
Already nine projects, four residential and five commercial, have been completed.
Currently, eight residential, 10,000 homes, and four commercial projects are under planning and/or development. Unique Builders aims to achieve a turnover of over Rs.6 billion by 2010.