Mahakumbh Traffic Advisory: “No Vehicle Zone” declared.
Summary: ‘No vehicle zone’ ahead of Maghi Purnima Snan after the massive traffic jam.
The MahaKumbh fair area is declared a "no vehicle zone" in the light of "Maghi Purnima Snan," set on Wednesday, February 12. This comes a day after people were stuck in traffic jams for almost 30 hours in multiple locations.
The administration has declared that starting from 4:00 am on February 11, the entire fair area would be a no-vehicle zone following the regulations. However, the restriction does not apply to emergency or necessary services.
On February 11, after 4:00 am, devotees' cars arriving from outside Prayagraj City for the Maha Kumbh bath will be parked in the lot for the appropriate route. Vehicles of essential and emergency services will be exempted from the above arrangement.
Traffic jams reportedly spanned 300 kilometers trapping hundreds of devotees heading to Prayagraj for the Maha Kumbh on Monday, ahead of Maghi Purnima. The situation was so severe that the police asked the devotees to turn back if they could.
Uttar Pradesh DGP Prashant Kumar, who spoke to the news agency PTI, said, traffic jams are unavoidable during Maha Kumbh because of the sheer volume of devotees, the largest human gathering in history rather than poor management.
Since the beginning of Mahakumbh on January 13, more than 40 crore devotees have already taken a holy dip at the Sangam, and millions more are still coming every day, according to the top cop.
Until the smooth departure of devotees from the expo area on February 12th, the mentioned traffic arrangement will be in force.