Prayagraj: The organisers of ‘Bhoole Bhatke Shivir' apart from maintaining manual records, have decided to set up their own digital data centre of lost and found persons this Maha Kumbh. .
The Bhoole Bhatke Shivir will start functioning from the first week of Jan 2025. The organisation has called up its 150 volunteers from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, MP, Jharkhand, Bihar, and UP to serve mankind. Interestingly, there will be at least 40 volunteers whose three generations have worked on banks of the Ganga for reuniting people with their families. The organiser of the Bhoole Bhatke Shivir, Umesh Tiwari, told TOI,
"We have reunited 15,16,106 adults and over 21,987 children between 1946 and 2024." In the 2019 Kumbh, 44,382 adults and 73 kids were reunited with families. He, however, said, "Despite the fact that the late Raja Ram Tiwari launched the novel work of the reunion of lost people with their families, the mela administration has not paid any respect to him in terms of highlighting his name in the upcoming Maha Kumbh."
As per the organisation's statistics, volunteers reunited over 5,142 adults and 134 children in the 2024 Magh Mela, while 6,318 adults and 173 children were reunited in the 2023 Magh Mela. Moreover, as many as 3,955 adults and 144 kids were reunited in the 2022 Magh Mela.