South Central Railway carries five lakh Mahakumbh pilgrims on 150 trains

Representative image
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

The Mahakumbh in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj has come to a grand conclusion on ‘Maha Shivaratri’, but the multitudes of pilgrims headed for the Ganga and its environs will continue well into the first week of March and beyond, at least those travelling by trains from here.

South Central Railway (SCR) already has a time table to run special trains till March 8 before the exclusive services for the pilgrims cease operations. If many pilgrims have hit the road to reach the holy ‘Triveni Sangamam’—the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers for the holy dip, the Railways has been the beast of the burden for so many others.

Top railway officials estimate that as many as five lakh pilgrims have travelled on the 150-odd trains towards Prayagraj, and these include the 88 regular trains, mainly the popular daily Danapur Express from Secunderabad, with nearly 150% occupancy. There were also 13 other pairs of special trains passing through the zone from Southern Railway and South Eastern Railway.

Two ‘Bharat Gaurav’ pilgrim specials, too, have been operated during this period to take 1,500 (on each train) devotees on an escorted tour of the temples in Prayagraj, Ayodhya, Varanasi, etc., and back.

“We did not have much of a problem during the [operation of] ‘Mahakumbh’ specials because the rush was staggered over the last two months starting from the first service on January 8. Maybe, certain services took more time to reach the destination because of the clogged lines up north. We have had … more challenging times during the Dasara and Sankranti festivals, when we handled the crowd over a period of 10 days,” explained Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) A. Sridhar.

The demand for the train services continue despite the conclusion of the main religious congregation because the pilgrims are said to be visiting nearby holy places such as Ayodhya to visit the newly built Ram Temple, Varanasi and others after the holy dip.

Commissioning the Cherlapalli new terminal station has enabled SCR to shift the specials’ originating point, easing up the main Secunderabad railway station, which is undergoing a massive redevelopment, including demolition of existing buildings.

“We have had pilgrim specials towards Prayagraj starting from Kacheguda, Moula Ali, Vijayawada, Guntur, Kakinada, Narsapur, Tirupati, Bidar, Machilipatnam, Nanded and Aurangabad stations, too,” pointed out Mr. Sridhar.

At point, SCR authorities had to deal with the sudden cancellation of the daily 12791/92 Danapur Express owing to “logistic” issues on the route for about 10 days, due to which the special trains were the only service for passengers travelling towards UP and Bihar.

SCR had also deputed about 150 personnel such as supervisors and other ticketing staff to Prayagraj to help the railway there handle the trains as well as crowds. Prayagraj apparently had eight stations within the city, running round the clock. Another station near the main bathing ghat was briefly shut for a day owing to a massive influx of pilgrims.

Here too, a war-room was set up in the head office and divisional offices to monitor services and crowds. More RPF personnel, ticket issuing and checking staff and others were pressed into service in the main stations to ensure orderly movement on platforms, especially post the New Delhi railway station stampede.

Overall, Indian Railways claims to have run over 17,000 trains, surpassing the originally planned 13,000 trains, with 4.24 crore passengers handled at Prayagraj stations.