Digital lost & found centres reunite 20,000 pilgrims at Mahakumbh

The centres have helped reunite a total of 20,144 people and many these were women, said mela officials

The digital lost and found centres have successfully reunited over 20,000 pilgrims with their families during the ongoing Mahakumbh-2025, which has made history with an unprecedented gathering of over 50 crore devotees since its commencement on January 13.

One of the Lost and found centres at Mahakumbh Nagar (Sourced)

The centres have helped reunite a total of 20,144 people and many these were women, said mela officials. The police too played an important role in successfully reuniting such devotees who came from different states of the country and neighbouring country of Nepal with their families, officials said.

Earlier, during the rush for the bathing festival on Mauni Amavasya (January 28, 29 and 30), while managing the crowd, the digital lost and found centers handed over all the 8725 lost people to their families, official records show.

Similarly, 598 devotees who were lost on Makar Sankranti festival (January 13, 14 and 15) and 813 devotees on Basant Panchami (February 2, 3 and 4) were reunited with their families with the help of digital lost and found centers. Apart from this, more than 10,000 people who were lost during other bathing festivals and normal days were also reunited with their families as per the records.

UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath had launched the lost and found centers through the digital system on December 7, 2024. Under this, 10 digital lost and found centers were set up, which are located in Sector 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 21, 23, 24 in Sangam, Jhunsi, Arail, Phaphamau area of tent city and near Prayagraj Junction railway station.

These digital lost and found centres have been provided with state-of-the-art facilities like AI-based face recognition system, machine learning and multilingual support. This has enabled the devotees separated in the fair area to be reunited with their families quickly. Uttar Pradesh Police, administrative officials and various voluntary organizations played an important role in the digital lost and found centers. Many non-governmental organisations also actively contributed to it, said DM of Mahakumbh Nagar Vijay Kiran Anand.