Rashtrapati Bhavan is well on its way to becoming a must-see on a visit to the Capital as there has been a crush of visitors to the President's House in one month with nearly 9,500 people coming in. The average of 300-350 visitors a day has now doubled to 700.
Between January 5 and February 17, 9500 people visited Rashtrapati Bhavan. "The largest crowd that we have drawn in a day was 1,209 people,'' an official said.
Officials hope the heritage building will soon be among the most popular monuments but that might be a bit far-fetched for now. In 2011-2012, Qutub Minar witnessed a footfall of nearly 27.9 lakh visitors while the Red Fort was visited by nearly 26.8 lakh Indian and 1.6 lakh foreign visitors. The third most popular monument is Purana Qila with over 7.5 lakh Indian and over 25,000 foreign visitors in the same year as per a TOI report.
There is an added dimension of security which means that Rashtrapati Bhavan can never see those volumes. The current increase in visitors has been credited with online registration of visitors, extension of visiting hours and opening of the President's House on Sundays.
Online registration will soon be upgraded to a higher security feature so that visitors can upload their pictures, give details of their identity and vehicle number and receive a receipt with a bar-code. "The bar-code will reduce any human error in looking at online receipts and reduce time. It will act like the advance passenger information system (APIC) in airports,'' the official said. Security personnel will only have to swipe the bar-code to allow visitors inside.
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