The Indian Railways has made elaborate and varied arrangements and undertaken several measures to provide adequate facilities for several lakhs of pilgrims who are expected to visit the Kumbh Mela which begins at Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, from 14th January 2013.
Zonal Railways, especially North Central Railway (Headquarters: Allahabad), North Eastern Railway (Headquarters: Gorakhpur) and Northern Railway (Headquarters: Delhi) have geared up their respective machineries in a big way to ensure maximum facilities and comfort for the huge travelling public in connection with the Kumbh Mela.
The special focus has been given in creating facilities in and around Allahabad. The measures and facilities undertaken by the Railway administration include additional ticketing, booking, enquiry counters, new Foot Over Bridges, escalators, new washable aprons, several special trains, extra coaches in popular trains, revamping of platforms and waiting halls, new enclosures with water taps and toilets, additional deployment of security, CCTV monitoring, medical facilities, deployment of additional staff, effective mechanism for crowd management and officers’ committees for monitoring and supervision. The details are as follows:-
Ø Arrangements for temporary holding and dispersal of pilgrims, their Booking, comfort, safety etc., at Allahabad, Naini/Cheoki, Vindhyachal & Chitrakoot on North Central Railway, Allahabad City (Rambagh) & Jhusi of North Eastern Railway and Prayag & Prayag Ghat stations of Northern Railway.
- Running of special Trains for dispersal.
- Facilitation Arrangements in Sangam area Comprising Booking and Passenger information.
Ø Major Works for Kumbh 2013:
- New and wider Foot Over Bridge (FOB at Smith Road along with new Ticketing Counters for ease of access to platform no. 4,5,6,7,8, 9 & 10.
- New FOB at Naini.
- Improvement of FOB stairs & platform surface at Allahabad and Naini Junctions.
- Escalators installed and tested at Allahabad Junction.
- Improvement in circulating area by covering of Hathi Nala and widening of Roads along with station building extension at Allahabad civil lines side.
- New Washable aprons provided at platform 7, 8 & 9 at Allahabad and platform no. 3 & 4 at Naini.
- Watering, coach maintenance & cleaning facilities have been augmented for Kumbh at Allahabad, Naini, Cheoki and Subedarganj.
- All electric cables on FOB laid through cable trays at Allahabad Junction as a safety measure.
- Extention of FOB to cover pf 3,4 & 5 at Allahabad city
- Additional full length running line no 6 with platform facility at Allahabad city
- Raising and extention of platform 5 upto medium level (550m) Allahabad city
- Augmentation of hydrant pipe from 12 coaches to 18 coaches at pf 2 in Allahabad city
Ø Operations planned:
- Nearly 800 extra coaches being requisitioned by NCR (Total about 1900 by 3 Rlys. – NCR, North Eastern Railway (NER) and Northern Railway (NR).
- Nearly 37 mela special rakes to be formed, by NCR.
- Over 750 special trains by NCR to run during mela period.
- Special Exp trains to be run & Extra Coaches in existing trains
- Additional stoppage to be given at Etawah, Allahabad, Naini, cheokki & vindhyachal stations.
- A number of special trains being time tabled.
- Additional Electric and diesel locos being planned
- Restrictions to avoid inconvenience :
o Goods traffic will be restricted during Mela period at Subedarganj, Naini, Mirzapur, etc.
o Parcel Booking will be restricted during Mela period at Allahabad, Naini.
o Four pairs of long distance trains to be diverted avoiding Allahabad from 01.02.2013 to 20.02.2013.
Ø Holding of Passengers while waiting of special trains:
- Adequate number of signage’s to guide passengers to the relevant enclosures giving direction wise colour codes for convenience of passengers.
- 7 enclosures at Allahabad city, 5 at Daraganj & 4 at Jhunsi each enclosure to have capacity to hold 2400-6000 passengers
- To hold the passengers, 4 enclosures at city side of Allahabad junction, 2 numbers of enclosures for emergency at civil lines side of Allahabad station & 3 numbers of enclosures at Naini station have already been built.
- Enclosures are colour coded for direction wise traffic.
o Enclosure 1 is “RED” in colour, for Satana side – Being dealt from PF 1.
o Enclosure 2 is “GREEN” colour for Jhansi side – Being dealt from PF 1.
o Enclosure 3 is “Yellow” colour for Mgs side – Being dealt from PF 4/6.
o Enclosure 4 is “BLUE” colour for Kanpur side – Being dealt from PF 2/3.
» Read Complete News.....(You need to login first to read complete news). New User? Register for FREE!
» Back to Travel News