SRTCs from other states ferry devotees to Mahakumbh
Buses from various states are facilitating pilgrim travel to Prayagraj for Mauni Amavasya, with shuttle services facing crowd challenges.
Apart from Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (UPSRTC), roadways of many other states are also running buses for the convenience of devotees wishing to reach Prayagraj for the Mauni Amavasya bathing.
On Tuesday, passengers reached Prayagraj in more than 200 buses of Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat Roadways. For the Mahakumbh, Gujarat Roadways is running AC Volvo buses to Prayagraj for the first time. On Mauni Amavasya, UPSRTC alone is operating 8,000 buses from 10 bus depots. Apart from this, passengers will also return home by buses being run by roadways of other states too, officials said.
Buses coming to Prayagraj from Gujarat (Ahmedabad) are being operated from the temporary bus depot built in Nehru Park. Roadways buses of different states are running from Bela Kachhar for Haldwani, Dehradun in Uttarakhand and Rohtak, Karnal, Hisar of Haryana and Jaipur, Bharatpur, Alwar etc cities of Rajasthan from the temporary bus station built in Nehru Park.
The arrival of devotees continued from Tuesday morning itself. More than 3,000 buses had been operated by Tuesday evening.
Like Makar Sankranti, more devotees of the Ayodhya route reached Prayagraj on Mauni Amavasya, according to officials. Buses are being operated every 5 to 10 minutes on Kanpur and Lucknow route. Roadways is running the maximum number of buses on Gorakhpur and Azamgarh routes. The maximum buses will be run on this route on Mauni Amavasya (January 29) also, said officials.
Roadways and city buses are operating shuttle services for pilgrims coming for Mauni Amavasya. On Tuesday, passengers were transported to their destinations free of cost by shuttle buses.
In view of the crowd of passengers, shuttle buses were operated from Subedarganj railway station also.
However, shuttle buses carrying passengers from Subedarganj, Prayagraj Airport and Nehru Park did not take them to Hindu Hostel crossing and when the crowd increased, the buses stopped near the Civil Lines-located Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission crossing itself.
Similarly, shuttle buses from Bela Kachhar in Phaphamau reached only till MNNIT-Allahabad instead of Bharat Scout and Guide Inter College. The buses could not take the passengers to the middle of the city as initially planned owing to the rush of pilgrims on foot. Owing to this, the devotees had to travel on foot for several kilometers. The distance of Sangam from UPPSC is about 11 kilometers. In this way, even after free travel, the devotees had to walk 10 to 15 kilometers to reach Sangam.
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