Kumbh devotees choke highways leading to Kashi

Varanasi: From the bordering points of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and MP to highways leading to Prayagraj via Mirzapur, Bhadohi, Chandauli, Ghazipur, and Jaunpur, vehicles with pilgrims on board crawled due to the very heavy load of Maha Kumbh visitors.
Compared to Saturday and Sunday when thousands of vehicles were stranded along highways and small townships, on Monday the men in khaki in all these districts by maintaining coordination with Prayagraj officials kept dispatching vehicles in small batches, ensuring that wheels keep rotating.
"We successfully regulated traffic on the highway leading to Prayagraj via Mirzapur which is used by drivers coming from MP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar though the average speed remained around 30 km per hour," said ADG, Varanasi zone, Piyush Mordia. He mentioned that a major bottleneck in Jaunpur's Mungra Badshahpur area was also cleared. By maintaining coordination with the National Highway Authority of India, barriers of Lalnagar toll plaza in Bhadohi were kept open most of the time when vehicles gathered there in very high numbers, he said.
Apart from focusing on these exercises, scores of motorcycle-borne policemen were engaged to initiate action against those who left their vehicles parked on the side lanes of highways. "On normal days, around 30,000 vehicles cross toll plazas like Lalanagar and currently the vehicle load there was four times greater," said ADG, mentioning all possible efforts were being made to keep the traffic moving on both lanes. Before the cops made the wheels rotate on highways on Monday, the excess vehicle load and no signal from the Prayagraj side to allow their departure from this region left thousands of vehicles stranded in holding areas, small townships and also highway-side food outlets, keeping those areas abuzz with pilgrims busy searching for food, water and public convenience.
Divisional commissioner Kaushal Raj Sharma said that as vehicles of pilgrims were being stopped in small towns due to the very heavy load on highways before reaching Prayagraj after crossing districts like Jaunpur, such areas were also getting choked.
Not only on highways but the railway stations were also witnessing a very huge crowd of pilgrims despite special trains operating frequently. Officials said that as the railway also has its limitations, most pilgrims opted to travel by road. The officials, who were expecting that the crowd surge would start reducing after the Basant Panchami bath, are now expecting some respite at the Maghi Purnima bath on Feb 12. However, the trend of the rising number of Maha Kumbh pilgrims converging here to offer prayers at Kashi Vishwanath Temple is giving a clear hint that massive crowding will remain evident here till the festival of Maha Shivratri on Feb 26. Since the first bath at Maha Kumbh on Jan 13 till Feb 9, over 1.32 crore pilgrims offered prayers at Kashi Vishwanath Temple. Except for the period from Jan 17 to Jan 21, when the footfall of pilgrims remained from 2,41,251 to 2,82,044, around four lakh pilgrims offered prayers at KV Temple either before heading to Prayagraj to attend Maha Kumbh or after returning from there. After the Mauni Amawasya bath, 7,29,578 and 7,53,151 pilgrims entered KV Dham on Jan 30 and Jan 31. Since Feb 1, the figures of pilgrims' footfall remained around five lakhs per day, and again on Feb 8, the influx of pilgrims at KVD rose to 6,21,307 and around five lakh reached on Feb 9. With this, the average footfall per day at the temple remained 4.42 lakh.
Due to this trend of Kumbh pilgrims visiting Varanasi, its roads leading to Prayagraj and other highways, Lehartara-Mohansarai, Ramnagar, Chandauli's Singhitalli, and Harahua on Lucknow highway, are also getting choked. Inside the city, very heavy pressure of traffic on routes like Mahmoorganj, Rathyatra, Lahurabir, Teliabagh, Maldahiya, Nadesar, Chowkaghat, Beniabagh, Maidagin, Visheshwarganj, Sonarpur, Lanka and Samneghat was witnessed. In view of increased traffic pressure, CP Mohit Agrawal made it clear that all traffic diversions, especially not allowing the entry of outstation vehicles inside city limits, will continue till Feb 26.