Arrangements for magh mela nearing completion

ALLAHABAD: With the magh mela starting from January 02, 2018, authorities are giving final touches to the arrangements.
For accommodating lakhs of devotees, who would be taking the holy dip in river Ganga during month long Kalpwas and on the Six major bathing days, authorities have constructed 15 temporary ghats. Made by using gunny bags, filled with clayey sand of the two rivers, authorities are expecting around 4 crores devotees coming to the city during this magh mela. Authorities claim that these 15 ghats can accommodate around 45 thousands devotees at a time.

In the interesting coincidence, that has come after 18 years, all the major Five bathing occasion are within the month of January. Starting from Paush Purnima (on Jan 02), Makar Sankrati is on Jan 14, Mauni Amvasya on Jan 16, Basant Panchami on Jan 22, Maghi Purnima on Jan 31 and Maha Shivratri on Feb 13.

Considered as a rehearsal for Kumbh 2019, authorities are busy giving final touches to the mela spread in an area of 1797 bigha. Kalpwasi's, saints and devotees have started arriving at the mela area.

To provide the best of facilities to the devotees, power department has completed all the fittings. The department has fitted 1100 odd LED's in the circulating area of the Sangam. Along with this, proper lighting has been provided in all the pontoon bridges, roads, and sectors.

The police department has also made proper arrangements to make the mela secure. Police department has made 12 police stations and 36 police outposts across the vast mela area. Besides, 12 fire stations, 80 CCTV's 4 drone, sniffer dogs, bomb disposal squad, NDRF, PAC and RAF have also been pressed into service.

Above all this, authorities have also made necessary arrangements to counter the increased volume of water in river Ganga. The 15 ghats have been properly barricaded beyond which the devotees would not be allowed to bath. "The additional volume of water (5000 cusec) which has been released from Narora has started showing results because of which the water level in Ganga has increased by around 25 cm and we were already prepared for the enhanced volume of water, preparations from our side is complete", said the executive engineer of the flood control department Manoj Kumar Singh.