Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has appealed to devotees to make arrangements prior to their arrival for the Char Dham Yatra
Within days of the opening of temple doors of Kedarnath and Badrinath, the number of devotees willing to participate in Char Dham yatra in Uttarakhand has gone to a record high. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has appealed to devotees to make arrangements prior to their arrival for the Char Dham Yatra.
“Devotees’ footfall in Char Dham Yatra, which is resuming after two years, is more than expected. While we’re making all possible arrangements, the numbers are more than capacity at all four dhams. We request devotees to make lodging, and other arrangements prior to their arrival,” said CM Dhami in his appeal following the incident of the stampede at Kedarnath some days ago.
Traffic jams that are taking hours to clear on all roads leading to Kedarnath. Such has been the rush of bookings for helicopter services that most operators have already sold off their inventory for the months of May and June. Rohit Mathur, CEO of Heritage Aviation, one of the major players in the sector, was quoted by ETTravelWorld saying that “the response to the yatra has been particularly overwhelming this year. A new trend that we are observing is a lot of young people are coming to visit the shrine – be it alone or with their parents. For some reason, there appears to be a lot of hype about Kedarnath. Consequently, we are seeing a phenomenal rush as a large number of people are seeking helicopter services for Char Dham or Do Dham trips,” Mathur said.
According to Mathur, more than half of the season got booked the day they opened the online booking window. The rush is now as heavy for the second round which commences post-monsoon, starting September to November when the temple’s gates shut for winter.
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