For the past several years there has been a lot of confusion going on in respect of important festival dates. While one almanac (Panchangam) showed a particular date for a festival, other almanacs had some different date. Even government was not able to decide which almanac to be taken as the standard one for fixing as festival dates. Now that confusion has been cleared with around thirty almanac experts meeting in the capital to arrive at a consensus pertaining to festival dates.

Thirty Panchanga experts from across the state took part in the brainstorming session to standardize the calendar. "It was confusion worst confounded on festival dates all these years. This meeting was held to thrash out differences and arrive at an almanac which would be devoid of any glitches," an expert said. These meetings are a routine affair to arrive at a consensus but every year there was some disagreement or the other on the dates of important festivals, leading to confusion among people.

Disputes always arose on the dates of Krishnashtami and Srirama Navami. In the last couple of years, there were differences over the festival dates of Vinayaka Chavithi and Sankranti too. While Vaishnava Panchanga experts write Panchangam relying on 'tidhis', non-Vaishnava pundits follow 'nakshatras' (stars). This predicament was getting reflected with festivals falling in different days. Last year, there was a lot of confusion over Krishnashtami. While the pundits gave a particular date, the government declared some other day as holiday.

Most of the Panchanga kartas pronounced that Krishnashtami would be celebrated on September 9 as ashtami starts in the afternoon of September 9, 2012, and ends the next day. Though the government has declared holiday for Krishnastami on September 10, the new almanac would mark Sept. 9 as Krishnashtami. Similarly, some Panchanga experts felt that Diwali should be celebrated on November 12 in 2012. But most of them agreed that November 13 would be Diwali date and this would be conveyed to the government. Senior Panchanga exponent S Hanumantaha Chari, who attended the meeting said "We could iron out our differences and arrive at a consensus on the festival dates. We would forward the list of festival holidays to the government soon."